The Anonymous Widower

Memories of Polythene

My first job on leaving Liverpool University was at ICI Mond Division in Runcorn.  I actually worked in Research at Runcorn Heath and like the company itself, I think where I worked no longer exists.  Or should I say I couldn’t find it when I returned to the area last year.

The process for making polythene, or more correctly polyethylene, was discovered by ICI at Northwich.

The first industrially practical polyethylene synthesis was discovered (again by accident) in 1933 by Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson at the ICI works in Northwich, England. Upon applying extremely high pressure (several hundred atmospheres) to a mixture of ethylene and benzaldehyde they again produced a white, waxy, material. Because the reaction had been initiated by trace oxygen contamination in their apparatus the experiment was, at first, difficult to reproduce. It was not until 1935 that another ICI chemist, Michael Perrin, developed this accident into a reproducible high-pressure synthesis for polyethylene that became the basis for industrial LDPE production beginning in 1939.

For some months in my brief period at Runcorn, I shared an office with L. H. (Bert) Cross, who told me quite a bit of the history of how polythene was made.  He would confirm the statement in Wikipedia that it was created by accident, as the researchers were experimenting with high pressures on ethylene gas.

Bert was an infra-red expert and he had analysed the spectrum of the compound to confirm what it was and ascertain his properties.  I won’t put all of the story in, as even now many years on, I don’t want to destroy confidences.  But let’s say that he found some interesting properties of polythene.

I’m not sure if it was Bert who told me, but at first they had no idea of what to do with their new product.  It was very expensive and suggestions that it could be used to stiffen wax candles were probably quickly discounted.

In the end it was Radar, that used polythene because of its unique insulation properties.  Even today, you’ll still find polythene as the insulation in the high-frequency cable that connects your television to the aerial.

Later I went on to work at ICI Plastics Division, but strangely I never worked on polythene, its production or properties again.

June 29, 2009 - Posted by AnonW | World | Liverpool, Polythene, Technology