In 1933, two organic chemists working for the UK’s Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Research Laboratory were testing chemicals under high pressure conditions. They produced a white waxy material. They tried to repeat the experiment, but couldn’t obtain the mystery substance. It was not until 1935 that another ICI chemist, Michael Perrin, worked out that the ICI chemists had oxygen in their apparatus by accident. Then he developed a reproducible high-pressure synthesis process for the white material, which we now know as polyethylene. This process became the basis for industrial low density polyethylene production, which started in 1939.
Polyethylene played a key supporting role during World War II - first as a coating for underwater cables and then as an insulating material for such vital military applications as radar insulation. This is because it was so light and thin that it made placing radar onto airplanes possible; something that could not be done using traditional insulating materials because they weighed too much.
It was not until after the war, though, that the material became a tremendous hit with consumers – and it keeps getting more popular. Polyethylene is produced in different grades (from very low density to high density) and its mechanical properties depend on how it’s produced. High Density polyethylene conquered its first mass market in the toy sector during the 1950s: it was the material used for Hula-Hoop rings.
Today, polyethylene is used to make such common items as sticky tape, soda bottles, milk jugs, dry-cleaning bags, pipes, water containers, etc.
print
