Setting out to make a substitute to shellac, a resin-like natural substance, the Belgian Leo Hendrik Baekeland invented the world’s first true plastic. It was later named bakelite after him, and transformed the world. Based on the results achieved with phenol resins by Carl Heinrich Meyer, Baekeland began to investigate the reactions between phenol and formaldehyde, but it is only in 1909 that the discovery of bakelite was formally announced.
Bakelite was the first synthetic plastic to be invented. Bakelite doesn’t melt or go soft, so it was soon found to have many uses, especially in the rapidly growing automobile and radio industries. When bakelite appeared in the radio industry in the 1930s, wooden radios rapidly became obsolete, turning the radio from a luxury object into a product that anyone could afford.
Bakelite is also used for domestic purposes, as electrical insulators for instance, where it proved to be more effective than any other material available – so effective in fact that it is still used as such today. It is resistant to heat and electricity, shatter-proof and does not crack, fade, crease or discolor from exposure to sunlight, humidity or sea salt.
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