History of plastics

Polypropylene.

Polypropylene  was discovered in 1954 by the Italian Giulio Natta, who progressed with  Karl Ziegler works and achieve to get a regular structure. Commercialization begins for both in Europe and North America in 1957 with the objective to manufacture domestic equipment, the first company to produce it was the Italian chemical Montecatini.

Initially polypropylene had a low resistance to high and low temperatures and ultraviolet light, this caused fast degradation in the material, this was not solved till 60´s by the development of this material and his correct polymerization.

Polystyrene

In 1893 the Germany apothecary Eduard Simon created for first time polystyrene, by isolating a natural resin, as styrene can be founded in the nature, in plants and food like strawberries, coffee or cinnamon. At the moment Eduard Simon was not conscient of his own creation, and not till one century later the chemical Hermann Staudinger realized that the Simon invent in reality was a plastic polymer made of long chains of styrene, from that we called polystyrene.

Badische Anilin- & Sodafabrik was the first company to manufacture and commercialize polystyrene in the 30´s.

PVC

The first PVC polymerization was carried in 1830 decade by Henri Victor Regnault, in that moment nobody saw the potential to use this material till Fritz Klatte that patented the material in 1913, but the patent was lost because nobody used it.  The first real use of PVC is dated from 1926 where it begun to be used for shower curtains. In 1933 a BF Goodrich chemical   patented again considering that was becoming popular. At the end of 70´s the PVC was one of the most used plastics and currently is the most used plastic in Europe. One of the best PVC qualities is to be less dependent from petrol, with only a 43% for its production.