Parkesine and Celluloid

In extensions of this work on vulcanisation, which normally involved only a few per cent of sulphur, both Goodyear and Hancock found that if rubber was heated with larger quantities of sulphur (about 50 parts per 1(X) parts of rubber) a hard product was obtained. This subsequently became known variously as ebonite, vulcanite and hard rubber. A patent for producing hard rubber was taken out by Nelson Goodyear in 1851. 

In 1862 the Great International Exhibition was held in London and was visited by six million people. At this exhibition a bronze medal was awarded to Parkes for his exhibit Parkesine. This was obtained by first preparing a suitable cellulose nitrate and dissolving it in a minimum of solvent. The mixture was then put on a heated rolling machine, from which some of the solvent was then removed. While still in the plastic state the material was then shaped by dies or pressure . In 1866 the Parkesine Co., Ltd was formed but it failed in 1868. This appears in part due to the fact that in trying to reduce production costs products inferior to 

One year after the failure of the Parkesine Company a collaborator of Parkes, Daniel Spill, formed the Xylonite Company to process materials similar to Parkesine. Once again economic failure resulted and the Company was wound up in December 1874. Undaunted, Spill moved to a new site, established the Daniel Spill Company and working in a modest way continued production of Xylonite and Ivoride. 

It is interesting to note that during this period L. P. Merriam and Spill collaborated in their work and this led to the formation in 1877 of the British Xylonite Company. Although absorbed by the Distillers organisation in 1961, and subsequently subjected to further industrial take-overs, this company remains an important force in the British plastics industry. 

By 1900 the only plastics materials available were shellac, gutta percha, ebonite and celluloid (and the bitumens and amber if they are considered as plastics). Early experiments leading to other materials had, however, been carried out. The 

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Trade names and synonyms Xylonite , Parkesine , Durofix , Celluloid , nitrocellulose, nitrocotton, gun cotton, pyroxylin, French ivory... 

Polymers have come a long way from parkesine, celluloid and bakelite they have become functional as well as structural materials. Indeed, they have become both at the same time one novel use for polymers depends upon precision micro-embossing of polymers, with precise pressure and temperature control, for replicating electronic chips containing microchannels for capillary electrophoresis and for microfluidics devices or micro-optical components. 

He named this plastic Parkesine. The Parkesine was later named celluloid in USA. In America, during 1868, a prize of 10000 was offered for discovery of any substitute for Ivory J.W. Hyatt made a billiard ball from nitrocellulose and camphor and called it celluloid and won this prize. Celluloid is highly inflammable as nitrocellulose is an explosive so attempts were made to discover other plastics. 

In 1855, the moldable features of collodion were exploited by the British inventor and chemist Alexander Parkes, who marketed the material as Parkesine. Combs, earrings, buttons, bracelets, billiard balls, and even false teeth were manufactured in his factories. Parkes chose to focus more on quantity than on quality, however. Because he used low-grade cotton and cheap but unsuitable solvents, many of his products lacked durability, which led to commercial failure. In 1870, John Hyatt, a young inventor from Albany, New York, discovered that collodions moldable properties were vastly improved by using camphor as a solvent. Hyatts brother Isaiah named this camphor-based nitrocellulose material celluloid. Because of its greater workability, celluloid became the plastic of choice for the manufacture of many household items. In addition, thin transparent films of celluloid made excellent supports for photosensitive emulsions, a boon to the photography industry and a first step in the development of motion pictures. 

Cellulose nitrate is a semi-synthetic plastic based on cellulose from wood or cotton. It is mixed with nitric and sulphuric acids, and uses camphor as a plasticiser. It is another compound that was being developed by various people in different places at the same time, but was launched in England in 1862 as Parkesine . It was later called Xylonite . Cellulose nitrate was finally patented in America in 1870 under the name celluloid , but has been known by over 60 different trade names during the years it has been in production. 

The history of plasticizers for man-made resins goes back to 18A6 when Schoenbein prepared cellulose nitrate, which provided the technology to make a resin that was amenable to plasticization (2). It was first plasticized by Alexander Parkes when he made "Parkesine," the forerunner of Celluloid (3 ). Parkes went on to produce various articles of plasticized cellulose nitrate. To modify their flexibility and hardness, he tried plasticizing the resin with oils, gums, paraffins, stearine, tar, glycerine, and other substances and varied proportions of those to his "pyroxy1ine." Cottonseed or castor oils were the preferred plasticizers cited in his master patent issued in 1865. 

British chemist Alexander Parkes (1813-90) patents Parkesine, a plastic made from nitrocellulose, methanol, and wood pulp it is later called celluloid. ... 

Celluloid, the first manmade thermoplastic, was not invented until after the 1850 s. J. Parker Maynard obtained a solution which he called Collodion by dissolving cellulose nitrate in an equimolar mixture of ether and ethanol in 1847. In 1862, Alexander Parkes patented the process of coating fabric with Collodion. He also shaped this cellulose derivative, which he called Parkesine, under heat and pressure, and was awarded a bronze medal for this invention at the Great International Exhibition in London in 1862. 

The first plastic material to be made from non-plastic precursors was cellulose nitrate. This was obtained by Alexander Parkes (1813-1890) by treating cellulose fibres with nitric acid, and was first displayed at the Great International Exhibition in Ijondon in 1862 under the name Parkesine. Parkes moulded his new material into small decorative articles, as well as utilitarian objects such as knife handles. Parkesine was the first semi-synthetic plastic, so called because one of the starting materials was polymeric. The applications of cellulose nitrate were much extended by J. W. Hyatt (1837-1920) in the United States, who found that camphor was effective as a plasticiser, and the resulting mixture was known as celluloid. Another semi-synthetic plastic, cellulose acetate, was introduced around the end of the nineteenth century, and had the advantage over cellulose nitrate of being less flammable. 

While vulcanization of NR and GP was the first purposeful modification of natural polymers, the first man-made polymer was nitrocellulose, NC, discovered by Braconnot in 1833 (see Appendix I). Several commercial products followed, e.g., Collodion (lacquers based on alcohol-ether solution), Parkesine (the first thermoplastic material hot rolled and formable into variety of shapes), Ivorite (used as a substitute for ivory). Celluloid (camphor plasticized NC). Cellulose acetate, CA, was introduced in 1869 by Schutzenberger. Casein crosslinking by formaldehyde resulted in a 1885-patent hy Kritsche and Spitteler for what later became known as Galalith, a horn-like material quite successfully used even today as an imitation of ivory and porcelain [Seymour, 1982 1989]. 

Parkesine n The name given to the historic first (commercially unsuccessful) thermoplastic, made by plasticizing Cellulose Nitrate. The polymer was dissolved in a solvent, castor oil was mixed in, and the solvent was evaporated. The product was developed by Alexander Parkes and was the forerunner of Celluloid, which was perfected in 1870 hy John Wesley Hyatt, who used camphor as the plasticizer. 

Alexander Parks modified cellulose with nitric acid to form cellulose nitrate and, by mixing this polymer with a plasticizer, he made a material named Parkesine. A few years later, a similar material named celluloid (cellulose nitrate plasticized with camphor) was patented by John and Isaiah Hyatt. 

If we step back to the nineteenth eentury, another natural polymer, cellulose, in addition to rubber, impaeted everyday life. The invention of cellulose plastics, also known as Celluloid, Parkesine, Xylonite, or Ivoride, has been attributed to three people the Swiss professor Christian Schonbein, the English inventor Alexander Parkes, and the American entrepreneur John Wesley Hyatt. 

Cellulose nitrate, also called nitrocellulose or gun cotton, first became prominent after Christian Schonbein prepared it in 1846. He was quick to recognize the commercial value of this material as an explosive, and within a year gun cotton was being manufactured. However, more important to the rise of the polymer industry, cellulose nitrate was found to be a hard elastic material which was soluble and could be moulded into different shapes by the application of heat and pressure. Alexander Parkes was the first to take advantage of this combination of properties and in 1862 he exhibited articles made from Parkesine, a form of plasticized cellulose nitrate. In 1870 John and Isaiah Hyatt patented a similar but more easily processed material, named celluloid, which was prepared using camphor as the plasticizer. Unlike Parkesine, celluloid was a great commercial success. 

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