Do You Know The Origin of Bakelite?

This will have to tell a story, it was a day in 1905, the German chemist Beyer, in the flask to do experiments on phenol and formaldehyde, found that the generation of a sticky thing inside, he washed with water, can not be washed off, and changed to gasoline, alcohol and other organic solvents, or not, which makes Beyer hurt his brain, and then he thought of every possible way to finally get this “annoying” things down, and then he was relieved to have it in the wastebasket. Beyer breathed a sigh of relief and threw it in the wastebasket. After a few days, Beyer to dump the waste bin, then he saw the piece of stuff, the surface is smooth and shiny, there is a kind of attractive luster, Beyer curious to take it out, to the fire barbecue, it is no longer soft, fell to the ground, it does not rupture, with the saw to saw, it was actually smooth sawing, sharp Beyer immediately thought that this may be a good new material. After people's experiments, it was found that this once “annoying” things, is too “delightful”. It does not seepage, heat does not deform, a certain degree of mechanical strength, but also easy to process, and there is good insulation, which is just emerging for the electrical industry, is simply too ideal. So, it is widely used in the production of electric gates, light switches, lamps, telephones and other electrical appliances, for which the name “Bakelite” was obtained. To this day, Bakelite is the most important, most produced, and most commonly used type of plastic.

 

Although Bakelite has so many benefits, then it will not also have to write the shortcomings of it, due to the shortcomings of phenolic resin is poor mechanical properties, but also not resistant to oil and chemical corrosion, in order to overcome the above shortcomings, people have modified phenolic resin, phenolic resin in the addition of different fillers can be obtained with different functions of the modified phenolic plastic, such as asbestos, mica in the ingredients, to increase its acid, alkali and abrasion resistance, can be used as a material for chemical equipment and electrical appliances. Can be used as materials for chemical equipment and motors, automobile parts; adding glass fiber can increase the hardness, can be used as machine parts, etc.; modified with nitrile rubber oil resistance and impact strength greatly improved; modified with polyvinyl chloride can improve mechanical strength and acid resistance. Understanding these characteristics of Bakelite, I believe we have some knowledge of Bakelite, so that we have some reference in the future materials.