Calcium carbide, discovery

One of the most important discoveries in the history of the chemical industry in Ontario was accidental. Thomas Carbide Willson (1860-1915) was trying to make the element calcium from lime, CaO, by beating tbe lime with coal tar. Instead, he made the compound calcium carbide, CaC2. This compound reacts with water to form a precipitate of calcium hydroxide and gaseous ethyne (acetylene). Willson s discovery led to the large-scale use of ethyne in numerous applications. 

At the time of the discovery of polychloroprene, acetylene appeared to be the only practical feed stock since no economic route through butadiene existed. Acetylene generated by the hydrolysis of calcium carbide was commercially available, hence for the next three decades all production was based on acetylene technology represented as follows ... 

The discovery of acetylene in 1836(or 1837) is attributed to Edmond Davy, but it was not until I860 that Berthelot definitely identified and named it(Ref 9, p 101 Ref 16, p 469). The compd obtained by Berthelot from cuprous acetylide was not pure because it contained some vinyl chloride. Acetylene was not produced commercially until Ca carbide was produced in the lab in 1899 by Morehead Willson, by heating a mixt of lime and coke in an electric furnace. They expected to prepare metallic calcium... 

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