Chardonnet, Count Hilaire

Count Hilaire de Chardonnet was an assistant to Pasteur during the silkworm saga. He became fascinated with the way silkworms spin silk, and he thought that, by understanding what the worm did, humankind could also learn to spin the desirable fiber. He was never able to duplicate silk, but he did... 

The first practical, commercial production of rayon was accomplished by a French chemist known as the father of the rayon industry. Count Hilaire de Bernigaud de Chardonnet. Chardonnet studied in Paris under Louis Pasteur, who at that time was investigating a silkworm disease that threatened the important French silk industry. Chardonnet assisted Pasteur in this research and learned a great deal about how the silkworm produced silk. One... 

French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur and French engineer Count Hilaire de Chardon-net tried to develop a synthetic alternative for silk. The cellulose fiber rayon was the result, patented by Chardonnet in 1885. 

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. 

By the end of the 19th century, important advances in the area of cellulose chemistry led to the development of chemical fibers from natural polymers. A first major step was the development of artificial silk made from nitrocellulose by Count Hilaire de Chardonnet and presented at the world exhibition in Paris in 1894. Alas, some unfortunate women wearing his new garments went up in flames when they accidentally came to close to open fire because nitrocellulose also makes an excellent explosive. Despite these initial difficulties, other inventions in the early 20th century in macromolecular chemistry, namely viscose production by Urban, Frem-ery, and Bronnert in 1901 and the discovery of macromolecules by H. Staudinger, initiated the development of chemical fibers from synthetic polymers, such as polyamide (PA), polyester (PES), polyacrylonitrile (PAN), and polyurethane (PUR). It took another 60 years until in 1993, the overall production of man-made fibers for the first time exceeded that of natural fibers. 

Count Louis Marie Hilaire Chardonnet, an assistant to Louis Pasteur, patented the process of producing filaments by forcing Collodion through small holes (spinnerets) in 1884. This "Chardonnet sifi" was a sensation at the Paris Exposition in 1891. Because of its inherent flammabiHty, this fiber was called "mother-in-law silk". Nevertheless, Chardonnet received the Perkin Medal in 1914 for this development. The carbon fibers used by Swan Edison in the nineteenth century were also used a century later as reinforcements for sophisticated plastic composites. 

Another use for nitrocellulose was discovered by Hilaire Bernigaud, comte de Chardonnet, who in 1844 deposited at the Academie des Sciences in Paris a sealed recipe for the creation of fibres of the material, after first stripping some of its nitro groups by treatment with acid. The secret was revealed only in 1887, when the count was busy setting up a factory in Besanpon to produce what came to be known as Chardonnet silk. This enjoyed a brief vogue until supplanted by the arrival of rayon. 

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