Science Museum in London features plastics
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BEYOND THE LAB
Science Museum in London features plastics Susan Mossman
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n 1968 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in a space suit made from multiple layers of polymer-based materials. This seemed the peak of modernity and was celebrated in the pop culture of the 1960s with PVC fashion wear, accessories, and furniture—evident in films such as 2001—A Space Odyssey. The Space Age and plastics seemed synonymous. We now live in an era which may see the advent of a spacecraft made with plastics and able to travel into deep space. The importance of plastics is highlighted in the Science Museum in London by objects found in various galleries ranging from Challenge of Materials and Exploring Space to the Making of the Modern World and Health Matters. These exhibits illustrate the development of semi-synthetic plastics from the mid19th century to the fully synthetic plastics of today. Our special exhibition Plasticity— 100 Years of Making Plastics (open until August 21, 2011*) tracks the importance of plastics to our lives, detailing the invention of the first entirely synthetic phenolic plastic, trade-named Bakelite, and encompassing today’s plant-based plastics. Here, I tell the story of the plastics which inspired this exhibition. The exhibition itself has four sections: “The Birth of Plastics”; “Plastic Dreams,” focusing on the widespread use of plastics since their introduction, and the properties and uses of key plastics including polythene, polyurethane, polyester, nylon, and acrylic; “Plastics Now,” including the environmental implications of their use; and “Plastic Futures,” on cutting*Most of the exhibits are part of the museum's permanent collection and some key items, notably the Bakelite coffin, will be redisplayed in the Challenge of Materials gallery.
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MRS BULLETIN
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VOLUME 36 • AUGUST 2011
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edge prototype products and sustainable plastics. The foundations of the modern plastics industry lie in the mid-19th century— an era of rich experimentation in natural and semi-synthetic materials, ranging from gutta-percha and vulcanized rubber to celluloid and milk-based casein. Lessons learned from manufacturing these materials were applied to the development of truly synthetic plastics which have existed since 1907 with the invention of Bakelite by Leo Baekeland. The 20th century was a period of massive growth in the polymer industry. Early thermosetting polymers, the phenolics and thiourea and urea formaldehydes, were followed in the 1930s by a range of new thermoplastic plastics such as nylon, polythene, polystyrene, and polyvinyl chloride. By the 1940s,
polyester appeared in both fiber and resin form. In 1946 Britain, glass-reinforced polyester, known more commonly as fiberglass, was developed and rapidly became an asset to boat, car, and furniture designers as well as inspiring new, freer forms and iconic chair shapes by key designers such as Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. After the Second World War, new engineered polymers were developed, providing a range of high performance materials designed fo
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