The Anonymous Widower

Gossip About Polythene

I’m putting in this post, as it was just office gossip with a guy I shared an office with at ICI Mond Division in Runcorn, but feel it ought to be recorded before I forget it again.

Bert Cross was ICI Mond’s infra-red analysis expert and he was a man who’d worked for the company from well before the Second World War. I remember one classic tale about the visit of the then Lord Melchett to the laboratories, where Bert then worked in Northwich and the Lord’s meeting with a researcher, who let’s say didn’t like the idea of capitalism.  Whenever, I hear the current Lord Melchett mentioned, I chuckle at Bert’s tale.

Bert also told how when polythene was discovered at ICI’s laboratories by accident, when they were applying high pressures to ethylene gas.  They found this waxy substance in the experiments. but they had no idea what to do with it.  One idea that was current, was that it might be added to candles to stop them bending. In the end it was polythene’s excellent electrical insulation properties combined with the need to develop better radar systems in the Second World War, that were to prove polythene’s earliest substantial use.

In the early days, it was thought that polythene was a perfect polymer, with no cross linking or imperfections.  Bert disproved this using infra-red analysis and always claimed he was nearly fired for his work.

Later when I worked at ICI Plastics Division, I didn’t actually work on polythene, but I worked with others who did.

At the time, ICI made low-density polythene and this was an amazing process with high-pressures, whirling shafts to mix it all and bearings that were lubricated by molten polythene.  It was engineering at its most difficult and best. The section I worked for, had actually applied computer control to two plants, using IBM 1800 computers.

At the time, one of ICI’s products was a high-grade cable-grade polythene used where a high-degree of electrical insulation was required.  A lot of this product went to Tupperware, as it made the containers look perfect.

January 21, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Business, World | Chemistry, Research