Word: baekeland
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...less known to the public than are the changes his work has wrought in the many common things people use, from toothbrush handles, telephones and false gums to gear wheels, automobile parts and airplane bodies. Even more than most scientists, the man is publicity-shy. He is Leo Hendrik Baekeland, inventor of Bakelite, "Father of Plastics...
...studying, Leo was busy in his darkroom. When he tried out the indelible properties of silver nitrate on a schoolmate's face, the other boy got panicky and went to a doctor, who suggested hydrochloric acid as a remover. The results were painful. Haled before a school board, Baekeland put some silver nitrate on his own skin, quickly and harmlessly removed it with another chemical...
Better glues were made from casein, a protein ingredient of milk, and from soybeans. In 1912 Dr. Leo Hendrik Baekeland, father of plastics, took out a patent on a synthetic resin for plywood filler, but did not start to exploit it until 1932. In 1926 a German chemist, Dr. T. E. Goldschmidt, developed a filler made of tissue paper impregnated with phenolic resin. This made a bond so firm that the sandwich was stronger weight for weight than steel. It was also waterproof and bacteria-proof...