Inventor Name
Carothers, Wallace Hume
Repository
Hagley Museum and Library
PO Box 3630
Wilmington, DE 19807-0630
302-658-2400
https://www.hagley.org/research
Physical Description
5 v.
Summary
Carothers was a chemist in E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company’s Fundamental Research Program from 1928 until his death in 1937. During these years he made important contributions to polymer chemistry and led research efforts that produced neoprene (artificial rubber) and nylon. Carothers was educated in the public schools of Des Moines, Iowa; received his B.A. at Tarkio College in Missouri and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Illinois. In 1926 he went to Harvard University as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and two years later he began work at the Du Pont Company. At Du Pont, Carothers did research on polymerization theory. In early 1930 the chemists in Carothers’ laboratory produced neoprne (synthetic rubber) and the first laboratory-synthesized fiber. In 1934, still working on polymerization theory, Carothers produced the first polyamide fiber which was later to become known as nylon. During the next two years, Carothers suffered frequent bouts of depression. On April 29, 1937, three weeks after the basic nylon patent application was filed, he committed suicide. Wallace Carothers’ laboratory notebooks document his work on polymerization theory which led to the discovery of neoprene and nylon during his nine years at the Du Pont Company. The notebooks show that Carothers focused his attention on the properties of polyesters as soon as he arrived at Du Pont. His initial experiments concentrated on discovering the melting points of chemically analogous polyamides. Carothers began trying to make fibers from these compounds which consisted of acids and amines. By the early 1930s he had synthesized a polyester with a molecular weight of over 12,000. These experiments led to the production of neoprene and nylon. The laboratory notebooks, however, show that during the early 1930s, under increasing economic pressure from the Great Depression, Du Pont began to re-evaluate its fundamental research program as Carothers and his colleagues were encouraged to turn their energies away from pure research and towards applied science. Nevertheless, during these years Carothers continued to follow his theoretical interests. As he sought to identify the mechanism of polymerization, his research moved away from the study of linear fiber-forming superpolymers and towards the study of cyclic compounds which consisted of eight or more carbon atom rings. The laboratory notebooks show that during the middle thirties Carothers discovered that he could synthesize these compounds by heating a polymer in a molecular still. This permitted him to determine the effects of molecular geometry on bonding.
