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Alexander Parkes - Hall of Fame Entry
  Author: Plastics Academy Staff
Added: 09/17/2005
Type: Summary
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Alexander Parkes - Hall of Fame Entry

 

Alexander Parkes  

Birthdate:
Dec. 29, 1813  

Deceased:
June 29, 1890  

Induction: 2005  

Industry Areas:
N/A  


In 1862, Englishman Alexander Parkes created the first manmade plastic material, Parkesine, and exhibited it at the 1862 Great International Exposition in London.

Parkesine was a semi-synthetic thermoplastic material based on cellulose nitrate, which could be chemically modified to be hard or flexible, or soft and rubberlike, providing a foundation for the whole plastics industry that followed.

An independent inventor working in Birmingham, England, Parkes described himself as a metallurgist and chemist, although he had no formal training in these fields.

His work in rubber compounding was helpful in his later efforts to develop a plasticizer for cellulose nitrate; the solvent was based on camphor.

This work laid the groundwork for John Wesley Hyatt’s perfection of celluloid in 1869.

Although Parkesine and its successors were never commercially successful, Parkes’ work provided the path for Hyatt to make his breakthrough with cellulose nitrate in the form of collodion as a substitute for ivory billiard balls.

Parkes died in 1890.


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