The Advent of Modem Chemistry

Since ancient times, people have recognized that plants contained substances that could promote health and cure illnesses, and they observed that some plants resisted pests better than others. Through trial and error, people scovered the use of these substances and developed procedures for their extraction and use. With the advent of modem chemistry, the stmctures of many of these biologically active agents became known, and the systematic studies of natural products that protected plants from pests became a recognized activity within the field of chemistry. 

Archeochemists believe that the first surfactants, soaps, were made from animal fats and wood ashes in Sumeria about 2500 B.C. Soaps remained the detergents used through the millennia and were a relatively scarce item until the advent of modem chemistry in the nineteenth century. Today, the soap, surfactant, and detergent market occupies a major segment of the chemical industry. The U.S. market for detergents is about 11 billion per year, and world production of surfactants is about 15 billion pounds (6.75 million metric tons). 

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