Plastics
• Dutch merchant ships
• English banking and insurance
• Tar & pitch
• Coal tar and coal gas
• Malaria/artificial dyes
• Chemical industry
• Polymers
1595- Dutch Fluyt
• Designed by
merchants for
trade.
• Longer, fatter with
lots of block/ &
tackle
17th - Britain Goes Dutch
• Sharing costs and risks to better
compete with the Dutch.
• Coffeehouse banking
• Established Bill of credit in 1683.
• Nag’s head tavern in 1684 became the
Bank of England.
Lloyd’s Of London
• 1688 Edward Lloyd opened his
coffeehouse where insurance could be
bought and sold.
• In 1700 he began publishing a list of
ships, rating their seaworthiness.
Tar & Pitch for boat hulls
• Most came from Scandinavian and
Baltic pine. Anaerobic heating to
produce Tar and Turpentine.
• Necessary to protect boat hulls and for
better insurance rating.
• Baltic war disrupted supply so went to
American colony until 1776.
Tar & Pitch from Pine Trees
Anaerobic decomposition of pine yielding charcoal,
tar/pitch, oils, and turpentine
Making Tar & Pitch
Coal Tar
• Archibald Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald,
extracted coal tar and coal gas via
anaerobic decomposition of coal.
• His coal tar was intended to replace
wood tar from the colonies. Except the
navy went to copper bottoms.
Coal + heat  coal gas + coal tar + water + coke
Coal Decomposition Products
Coal
Coke; 70% by mass
gases
Coal gas; 17%
Lighting The Factories
• Murdock, an
associate of James
Watt received patent
for coal gas lighting.
• He introduced gas
lamps, which were
brighter, safer and
cheaper than
candles.
Lighting The Streets
• Winsor, promoted
municipal coal gas.
• Soon cities began piping
coal gas throughout the
town and lighting the
streets.
• Night time streets became
safer thus evening
activities increased.
What To Do With All That
Coal Tar Waste
• Macintosh sought coal tar
waste as a cheap source
of ammonia mordant for
natural dyes.
•
He subsequently
extracted naphtha to
clean his dyeing
machines and dissolve
rubber to make
waterproof fabrics.
Today’s Fractional Distillation
In the Laboratory
At the Refinery
Trilaminates
• Macintosh made a
waterproof trilaminate
by dissolving rubber
in naphtha, spreading
it on a layer of fabric
and gluing another
fabrics to it.
Malaria A Problem In British
Far Eastern Colonies
• Cinchona plant
extract called
quinine was
treatment for
malaria.
• Cinchona, native to
S. America would
not survive a
transplant in Asia.
W.H. Perkins Discovers Artificial
Aniline Dyes
• 1856 he accidentally
made first synthetic
dye while trying to
isolate Quinine from
coal tar and began
production in
England.
• He closed his British
factory in 1870.
Britain Lost Its Lead
• Investors and banks saw investing in
color chemistry to be too risky.
• Going to college to get a job in England
was considered “lower class” to
aristocrats. They were too embarrassed
to profit from their education.
Germany’s
University/Industry Reciprocity
• In 1870, Germany
began the first largescale chemical
companies: BASF,
Hoechst, Bayer, etc.
• The German economic
boom caused a wheat
crises.
• Shortage in Sodium
Nitrate fertilizer led to
Haber/Bosch process
Reactants  Products
N2 (g) + 3H2 (g)  2NH3 (g)
Nitrogen
+ Hydrogen
 Ammonia
Making Synthetic Diamonds
• Henri Moissan
accidentally discovered
Calcium carbide:
•
CaC2 (s)+ 2H2O 
C2H2 (g)+ Ca(OH)2(aq)
• Because acetylene
lamps were brighter by
1899 acetylene gas jets
were throughout
Germany.
Gas Mantle and Cheap
Electricity
• 1905 gas mantle &
cheap electricity
replaced acetylene.
•
BASF using cheap
CaC2 to fix nitrogen for
fertilizer. Containing
20% nitrogen.
• War shortage of NaNO3
led back to
Haber/Bosch for
explosives.
Ammonia + Oxygen  Nitric acid + Water
NH3 + 2O2  HNO3 + H2O
Fritz Klatte
• Working with the cheap acetylene, HCl
and Hg made a useless milky sludge
later refined to PVC.
• HCl + C2H2  C2H3Cl  PVC
acetylene
Hydrochloric acid
Vinyl chloride polyvinylchloride
• Actually Henri Victor Regnault made
PVC first around 1835.
1846 Christian Schoenbein
• Accidentally discovered nitrocellulose
(guncotton) which found immediate use
as an explosive and later the first
thermoplastic.
• Later in 1906 Leo Baekeland
discovered the first thermoset, phenol
formaldehyde resins.
Cellulose & Nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose
Natural or Biopolymers
• DNA
• Protein
– Wool, Silk, Leather
• Cellulose
– Wood, Cotton, Hemp
• Terpenoids
– Rubber (polyisoprene)
DNA
Guncotton
Polymers
• “Many units”
• Condensation polymers are monomers A and
B combined in a head and tail fashion making
a continuous chain ABABABABABAB……
Such as nylon or polyethylene terephthalate
(PET).
• Addition or homopolymers usually come from
one monomer A reacting with itself, like
AAAAAAA….. Such as PVC, Polyethylene,
Polypropylene, Polystyrene, Polyisoprene.
Plastics From Coal and
Petroleum
• Petroleum and coal is the raw material
for most all synthetic polymers
(plastics).
• Monomers are chemically modified
derivatives from extracts of these
sources.
Thermoplastics
• These polymers are
thermally moldable.
That is, when warmed,
they soften or flow like
fresh spaghetti so they
can be extruded or
molded into shape.
• These types of
materials are inherently
recyclable.
Thermoplastics & Uses
Thermoplastic
Uses
Polyethylene (PE)
Bags, milk containers
Polystyrene (PS)
Disposable eating utensil
Acrylic (PMMA)
Optics, coatings
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) Plumbing, flooring
Polyethylene
terephthalate (PET)
Polypropylene (PP)
Beverage containers
Rope, composites
Thermosets
• These materials are not thermally
moldable, instead they are thermally
“set” & not recyclable.
• They typically can not be unset. These
are highly cross-linked polymers such
as epoxies or urea-formaldyehydes,
unsaturated polyester resins or highly
cross-linked thermoplastics like PE.
Cross-lined Polymers
Polymer Structures
HDPE
Crystalline
“Opaque”
LDPE
Noncrystalline
“Clear”
Epoxy
Composite Materials
• There are mixtures of
different materials
engineered for specific
functions. Such as fiber
reinforced plastics (FRP)
• Filled plastics contain a
filler such as calcium
carbonate to make such
materials as synthetic
marble or onyx.
What you should know
• Differentiate Dutch Fluyt
& Galleon
• Bill of credit
• Coffeehouse banking
• Connection between
insurance and boat hulls
• How tar and pitch was
produced
•
•
•
•
Slide #2 & B191
#4 & B193
#4-5
#5-6 & B194-195
• #6-7 & B195
What you should know
• What is “soho stink.”
• How did coal gas change
life in Europe
• How Macintosh made
waterproof fabric.
• Why, the British let slip
their lead in color
chemistry to Germany
• Where natural sodium
nitrate came from.
• Ammonia from coal tar
#10 & B198
• #11-12 & B200
• #14-15
• #16-18 & B206
• Chile
What you should know
• What triggered Germany
to synthesis Sodium
nitrate, NaNO3 (s) and how
was it made?
• Connection between
wheat crises, artificial
diamonds and fertilizer.
• How was acetylene made
and why did it have a
short life as a lamp fuel.
• #19 & #22 for fertilizer
• #20-22 & B209
• #20-21 & B209-210
What you should know
• What triggered Germany
to synthesis Sodium
nitrate, NaNO3 (s) and how
was it made?
• Connection between
wheat crises, artificial
diamonds and fertilizer.
• How was acetylene made
and why did it have a
short life as a lamp fuel.
• #19 & #22 for fertilizer
• #20-22 & B209
• #22 & B209-210
What you should know
• What is a polymer?
• Differentiate between
natural and synthetic
polymers
• Differentiate between
thermoplastics and
thermoset plastics
• A long chain of
molecules
• Natural polymers
come from living
things, ie. Silk, wool,
cotton, leather
• #31-35 thermosets are
highly cross-linked