Chardonnet, Louis

The next inventor to make a mark was Louis Marie Hilaire Bernigaud, the Comte de Chardonnet. He was searching for a way to make a synthetic silk (as we describe in the Polymer Milestone below). Hopefully,... 

Louis-Marie-Hilaire Bernigaud, comte de Chardonnet, born in Besancon, France, is credited with having developed artificial silk, which came to be known as rayon. In the 1860s Chardonnet, originally trained as an engineer, assisted Louis Pasteur in an effort to save the French silk industry from an epidemic affecting silkworms. 

Chardonnet received his first patent for artificial silk in 1884 and began manufacturing the material in 1891. In 1924 artificial silk came to be known as rayon, see also Cellulose Fibers Pasteur, Louis Polymers, Synthetic. 

Louis-Marie-Hilaire Bemigaud, Comte de Chardonnet (1839-1924)... 

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... 

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. 

Chardonnet, Count Louis M.H. 1,7 Charles X, King of Sweden 54 Chemical Manufacturers Association 246 Chemical Society of Japan 109 Chemical Society (U.K.) 70,72 Chemists Club 185,186,188,228 Chen,J.CP.57 Cheng.T. 170,171,225 Chini, P.209... 

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. 

Rayon (Louis-Marie-HUaire Bernigaud de Chardonnet) Bemigaud de Ghardonnet, a Erench chemist, invents rayon, the first artificial fiber, as an alternative to silk. 

The first synthetic fiber was rayon. In 1865, the French silk industry was threatened by an epidemic that killed many silkworms. Louis Pasteur determined the source of the disease, but it was his assistant, Louis Chardonnet, who realized that a substitute for silk would be a desirable commercial item. Chardonnet accidentally discovered the starting material for a synthetic fiber when, while wiping up some spilled nitrocellulose from a table, he noticed long silk-like strands adhering to both the cloth and the table. Chardonnet silk was introduced at the Paris Exposition in 1891. It was called rayon because it was so shiny that it appeared to give off rays of light. The rayon used today does not contain any nitro groups. 

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