Bakelite Plastic
Around 1907, Belgian-born chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland took two ordinary chemicals, phenol and formaldehyde, mixed them in a sealed autoclave, and subjected them to heat and pressure. The sticky, amber-colored resin he produced in his Yonkers laboratory was the first plastic ever to be created entirely from chemicals, and the first material to be made entirely by man.
Dr. Baekeland’s new material was publically announced in1912 and named Bakelite. This entirely synthetic material opened the door to the Age of Plastics and seeded the growth of a worldwide industry that today employs more than 60 million people. Today, synthetic plastics are everywhere.
http://mjacobandsons.com/techspecs.html
(Source: portal.acs.org)
