Kwolek

Figure 5.7 Sketch of an interfacial polymerization with the collapsed polymer film being withdrawn from the surface between the immiscible phases. [Redrawn with permission from P. W, Morgan and S. L. Kwolek, J. Chem. Educ. 36 182 (1959) copyright by the American Chemical Society.]...

The first synthesis of Kevlar by solution polymerization was reported by S. L. Kwolek, P. W. Morgan, and W. R. Gorenson of DuPont in U. S. Patent 3,063,966 (1962). In 1980, Stephanie Kwolek won the American Chemical Society s Award for Creative Invention, and on July 22, 1995, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. In 1996 Stephanie Kwolek was awarded... 

Innovative Lives Stephanie Kwolek and the invention of Kevlar. Smithsonian Institution, http //www.si.edu/lemelson/centerpieces/ilives/ Iecture05.html... 

Stephanie Louise Kwolek. Inventor of the Week Archives The Lemelson-MIT Prize Program, http //web.mit.edu/invent/www/inventorsl-Q/kwolek.html... 

When she first synthesized KEVLAR , Stephanie Kwolek did not know that it would eventually be used in bulletproof vests or protective gloves. She did, however, understand the theories behind the properties that make it suitable for such applications—the theories of intermolecular and intramolecular forces. This is not always the case. Often scientists discover a material that has useful or interesting properties, but are unable to explain them. 

Morgan, P.W. 1965. Condensation Polymers by Interface and Solution Methods. Wiley, New York. Morgan, P.W. and Kwolek, S.L. 1959. The nylon rope trick. J. Chem. Ed., 36 182. 

Fig. 2-11 Interfacial polymerization removal of polymer film from the interface. From Morgan and Kwolek [1959 a,b] (by permission of Division of Chemical Education, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC and Wiley-Interscience, New York) an original photgraph, from which this figure was drawn, was kindly supplied by Dr. P. W. Morgan.

A second classical method for making capsules from emulsions is to form the shell polymer in situ using interfacial polymerization (Morgan and Kwolek 1959 Wittbecker and Morgan 1959). This method is similar to the nylon rope trick often used as a demonstration, where a solution of diacid chloride in organic solvent (such as adipoyl chloride in hexanes) is layered in a beaker with a diamine aqueous phase (such as 1,6-hexadiamine in water Friedli et al. 2005). Because the two monomers meet only at the interface of the two phases, the condensation polymerization to form the polyamide occurs only at the interface. 

Morgan PW, Kwolek SL. Interfacial polycondensation. 2. Eundamentals of polymer formation at liqud interfaces. Journal of Polymer Science Part A—Chemistry 1959 40 299-327. 

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