Chemurgy Movement

The chemurgy movement grew rapidly during the time of the Great Depression, and the advent of the Second World War resulted in a huge amount of activity to derive as many products as possible from domestic sources, for strategic reasons. However, with the end of the war, the development of many new cheap products by the petrochemicals industry led to the rapid demise of the chemurgy movement. 

H. Ford not only was a major force in the Chemurgy Movement but also is cred-... 

The symposium on which this book is based is certainly not the first to describe the concept of using renewables as chemical feedstocks. Well into the 20th century, renewable feedstocks supplied a significant portion of the nation s chemical needs. The chemurgy movement of the 1930s, led by such notables as William Hale and Henry Ford, promoted the use of farm products as a source of chemicals, with the belief that anything that can be made from a hydrocarbon could be made from a carbohydrate" (I).li is only in the period of time between 1920 and 1950 that we have witnessed the transition to a nonrenewables based economy (2). 

The Second World War effectively put an end to the chemurgy movement, including Ford s desire to introduce large quantities of soy plastics into automobiles. After the Second World War, cheaper and better performing synthetic petrochemical based resins replaced soy and milk based protein plastics. 

Interestingly, the chemurgical movement was not initiated as a result of a shortage of other feedstocks, but rather as a way to use farm surpluses Clark, J. P., "Chemurgy". In Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 4th ed., Vol. 5. Kroschwitz, J. I., Howe-Grant, M., Eds., John Wiley Sons, New York, 1993 p. 902 Hale, W. J., The Farm Chemurgic, The Stratford Co., Boston, MA, 1934. 

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