A brief history of PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride)
Polyvinyl has been around for a very long time, the exact time of discovery was around 1835 and this was discovered by a French chemist named Henri Victor Regnault.
It was an accidental discovery that was caused by leaving polymer in the sunlight which caused a chemical reaction and caused the substance to harden. Believe or not this exact situation had happened twice and both times it said that it was created by accident due to leaving the polymer substance in direct sunlight (being lazy pays off sometimes ay?). This time it was by a German man named, Eugen Baumann in 1872.
(Did they forgot to clean up or they were doing scientific research? I’ll leave you guys to decide that one)
Despite there being 2 accidental discoveries of a new chemical, you’d think one of them would have patented the substance… right? WRONG! Neither of the men had patented the substance thus leaving it to a 3rd person to take the shine (although I think it provides a good background story). The man with the claim to fame is a famous chemist by the name of Waldo Semon who had perfected the concept of PVC by 1913 a whole 78 years after the first discovery had been made!
Waldo had found the technique of plasticizing the PVC from a brittle material into a flexible strong material that was able to stand the time, this was 1926 and by this date the use of PVC had been accessible for widespread use. The rest is history, the PVC that had been perfected by waldo has been used ever since and will not be going anywhere for a long time.