Materials
Polyethylene
Also Known As Polythene
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The world's most widely produced plastic, a thermoplastic polymer of long chains of ethylene (C2H4) monomer joined by addition polymerization; grades range from flexible film (LDPE, LLDPE) to rigid, high-strength material (HDPE, UHMWPE), used from bags and food wrap to bottles, pipe and industrial containers. It has two separate, non-continuous origin events roughly thirty-five years apart, often collapsed into one story: an 1898 laboratory curiosity with no industrial follow-through, and a 1933 industrial accident that became the basis of a genuine commercial process.
Facts
Primary UsePackaging, film, bottles, pipe and industrial containers, favored for low cost, chemical inertness and moldability. 1 Origin YearThe industrially significant date: Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson, at ICI's Winnington laboratory, observed an unexpected pressure drop and a waxy solid on 27 March 1933 while reacting ethylene and benzaldehyde at 1,900 atm and 170C, the process that led to commercial polyethylene. A separate, earlier, industrially inconsequential event predates this by 35 years: Hans von Pechmann produced solid polyethylene as a laboratory curiosity in 1898 while thermally decomposing diazomethane, identified by colleagues Eugen Bamberger and Friedrich Tschirner as a -CH2- chain polymer they called "polymethylene." No industrial use followed the 1898 event; the two should not be read as one continuous invention. Cross-Tradition Connections
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Polyethylene is the world's most widely produced plastic by volume.
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