What is vinyl?Vinyl is a particular type of plastic that was first created by a German chemist, Eugen Baumann, in 1872. Decades later, two chemists at a German chemical company tried to use the poly-vinyl chloride, or PVC as it's more commonly called, in commercial products but were unsuccessful. It wasn't until 1928 that an American chemist, Waldo Semon, experimenting with a new adhesive for rubber, created the modern PVC as we know it and its now-ubiquitous presence in our daily lives.How is vinyl made?The discovery of PVC was completely by chance. Eugen Baumann had accidentally left a flask of vinyl chloride in the sunlight (as chemists are wont to do). Inside, a white solid polymer polymer had materialized. Though Baumann was a renowned chemist and professor at various German universities, he never applied for a patent for his discovery of PVC.

Decades later, two chemists at a German chemical company called Griesheim-Elektron tried to mold the substance into commercial products, but also had no luck processing the hard substance. It wasn't until American inventor Waldo Semon came along, while working at the B.F. Goodrich Company, that PVC's versatile uses were fully explored.

In 1928, Semon was experimenting with vinyl polymers, a substance that was widely known but considered useless. In his 1999 obituary in The New York Times, he was quoted as recalling in a recent interview, "People thought of it as worthless back then. They'd throw it in the trash.'' Little did they know.

During Semon's many experiments, he created a powdery substance with a texture not unlike flour and sugar. PVC's makeup consists of chlorine, based on common salt, and ethylene, which is derived from crude oil. The powder didn't work as Semon had hoped, but he continued to investigate, this time adding solvents to the powder and heating it to a high temperature.

What emerged was a jelly-like substance that could be tweaked to be both harder or more elastic enter the modern PVC. Semon continued to play in his laboratory, further discovering that this gelatinous substance could be easily molded, would not conduct electricity, and was both waterproof and fire-resistant.

But with the stock market crash of 1929, Semon had to wait a couple more years before anyone was interested in the new plastic. According to the Times obituary, Semon had a "lightbulb moment" in the 1930s while watching his wife, Marjorie, make curtains. Seeing that this vinyl could be manipulated into a fabric, he eventually convinced his bosses to market the material under the trade name Koroseal. By 1933, Semon had received the patent, and shower curtains, raincoats, and umbrellas made out of PVC began rolling out in production. Semon was inducted into the Invention Hall of Fame in 1995 at age 97, with more than 100 patents under his name.

It is predicted that with the rise of electric cars, more and more companies with ties to the oil industry will turn their attention to plastic production. This will undoubtedly put more emphasis on petrochemicals, which now use 15% of fossil fuels as their feedstocks, but are expected to rise to 50% by 2040, according to Bloomberg. As global movements committed to the climate crisis continue to push the message that single-use plastic is a system failure, there is no doubt that the fossil fuel industry will be fighting right back.

But Big Oil doesnt think so; according to Tim Young at the Financial Times, petrochemicals are the only major source of oil demand where growth is expected to accelerate. These forecasts assume a steady, strong demand for plastic will translate into increasing consumption of feedstock. They provide a rare ray of optimism for the oil industry against increasingly dire long-term predictions that growth of other demand sources will slow.

Imperishability, once plastic's greatest asset, is now one of our earth's curses. The current plastic economy sees about 90% of its products used once, then discarded. An editorial in the journal Nature Communications predicts: "We need a fundamental change in order to make a noticeable impact on the plastic waste seeping into our environment. A new plastic future in which biodegradable polymers replace conventional plastics could be the answer."

However, even biodegradable plastic has its challenges. These "green" plastics require industrial composting to break down and continue to encourage the very root of our problem: a disposable culture based on the convenience of living in the moment. The anti-plastic movement continues to grow, but with one of the biggest and most powerful industries behind it, PVC, literally and figuratively, has a long life ahead of it.

TH's Lloyd has a few thoughts on plastics and vinyl; you can view his unfiltered lecture here.

What is vinyl? Let's explore how this ubiquitous and versatile plastic is made, what its uses are, and all of its safety concerns.

View original post here:
Vinyl: the plastic found in (almost) everything - Treehugger