Bevan, Edward

Bevan, M., Shufflebottom, D., Edwards, K., Jefferson, R. Schuch, W. (1989). Tissue and cell-specific activity of a phenylalanine ammonia-lyase promoter in transgenic plants. The EM BO Journal 8, 1899-1906. 

An ingenious treatment of cellulose was discovered by Charles Cross and Edward Bevan in England in 1892. It involved first preparing a chemical derivative called cellulose xanthate in a process that is conceptually no different from converting cellulose into other derivatives such as cellulose acetate or cellulose nitrate. What made this different, however, is that xan-thates are reactive chemical intermediates that can be converted easily into still different compounds, or returned to the starting material, in this case cellulose. See Equation 3. 

Cellulose was first discovered in 1819 by the French naturalist Henri Braconnot (1781-1855). The compound was first isolated and analyzed fifteen years later by the French botanist Anselme Payen (1795-1871), who gave it its modern name of cellulose based on its origin ( cell ) plus the suffix -ose. The earliest chemical studies of cellulose were conducted by a team of English chemists, Charles Frederick Cross (1855-1935), Edward John Bevan (1856-1921), and Clayton Beadle (1868-1917), who identified the compound we now know as cellulose and reported on its structure and properties in the 1890s and early 1900s. 

Cross, Charles, Clayton Beadle, Edward Bevan. Cellulose. An Out line of the ChemiAtry of the Structural Element A of PlantA, with Reference to Their Natural HiAtory and InduAtrial . Elibron. Replica of 1895 edition by Longmans, Green, and Co., London. 

I890s-early 1900s British chemists Charles Frederick Cross, Edward John Bevan, and Clayton Beadle identify the compound now known as cellulose. They also develop rayon. 

The Viscose method mentioned earlier was finally worked out in 1894 by English chemists Charles Frederick Cross, Edward John Bevan, and Clayton Beadle. This method was a commercial success, and the fabric was manufactured first by Courtaulds Fibers in the United Kingdom and then Avtex Fibers in the United States. 

British chemists Edward Bevan (1856-1921) and Charles Cross (1855-1935) develop the viscose process for making rayon. 

Artificial sUk (Charles E Cross and Edward J. Bevan) British chemists Cross and Bevan create viscose artificial silk (cellulose acetate). 

Charles F. Cross, Edward J. Bevan, and Clayton Beadle with the so-called viscose process using alkali and carbon disulfide, cellulose is reversibly converted into the xanthogenate (or xanthate) and thus rendered soluble (the gelatinous solution was called viscoid ), spun, and then transformed back into cellulose in an acid bath, and now called rayon [38]. But it wasn t until 1900, with the invention of modem spinning equipment by Charles F. Topham, that it became possible to create cellulose fibers commercially [39], Jacques E. Brandenberger succeeded in producing crystal clear films out of rayon in 1908 in Paris with a new type of machine he called the product cellophane - the first flexible, transparent, and waterproof packaging material - and patented the process in 1918 [40]. 

The first commercial-scale production of a manufactured fiber was achieved by a French chemist, Count Hilaire de Chardonnet. In 1884 his fabrics made of artificial silk caused a sensation at the Paris Exhibition. Two years later he built the first commercial rayon plant at Besangon, France, and secured his fame as the father of the rayon industry. However, the artificial silk invented by Chardonnet was based on cellulose nitrate, and its flammability limited its applications. In 1892 the viscose rayon process was invented by Charles F. Cross, Edward J. Bevan, and Clayton Beadle in England, and became the basis for the regenerated cellulose fiber industry. 

In 1892 Charles Cross, Edward Bevan and Clayton Beadle patented the viscose process for dissolving and then regenerating cellulose. The process was first used to produce viscose rayon textile fibres, and subsequently for production of cellophane film. 

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