Grease chemistry - The MOA podcast is here!

Podcast

Sep 27

How are a piece of bread, exploding billiard balls, and electricity connected? The answer is one word: plastics. Our first season and episode are all about the greasy science behind the highly influential material in our modern society. Join Oliver, our Head of Research and Innovation, and Barnabas, our Brand and Marketing Manager, in a nerdy after-hours deep dive into the science behind polymers!

The first season of the Carbon Lab will all be about plastics. Where are they coming from, how they were perfected, and what’s wrong with them? Our first episode, “Grease chemistry: The world of plastics” looks into the surprisingly interesting history of polymers.

From Mesoamerica to Bakelite and beyond

The history of plastics, or rubber to be precise, dates back to the indigenous cultures in Mesoamerica. This natural material was used to make balls and waterproof containers, among other things. From these first use cases, it took a long time to go beyond natural rubber.

Celluloid and exploding billiard balls

Among the first great inventions was celluloid in 1869. At the end of the 19th century, scientists started to work on artificial substitutes for certain materials due to ever-growing scarcity. One of these highly demanded materials was ivory. Thanks to celluloid, we could substitute it. Artificial ivory was used for billiard balls, for example. This use case quickly highlighted a significant problem with celluloid: It’s highly flammable. This not-so-small issue led to exploding billiard balls.

Another important breakthrough was the invention of Bakelite in 1907. Bakelite came just in time to help the spread of another revolution: electricity. Before Bakelite, there was no easy and cheap way to create insulators for cables and electric devices. It’s fair to say that polymers were essential to building our highly electrified world today.

Grease chemistry: Understanding long-chain molecules

However, the theoretical understanding of polymers still needed to catch up, which limited what people could do with the material. It took one stubborn scientist, Hermann Staudinger, to prove that polymers are long-chain molecules. His peers thought he was wrong and advised him to forget “grease chemistry” and focus on more noble areas of science. Luckily, he didn’t budge.

His breakthroughs were necessary to understand and gain scientific control over polymers. Staudinger won the Nobel Prize in 1953 for his discoveries. From there, the use and manufacturing of plastics grew exponentially: in 2023, we’re about to produce 153 million tons of it, according to one study.

If you’d like to learn more about Staudinger’s struggles and other breakthroughs that led to plastic’s success, listen to the first episode below!