Women Inventors: Kevlar
Wikimedia CommonsStephanie Kwolek.
Accidents have produced many things, both good and bad. One item on the decidedly good list is Kevlar, brought to us by a chemist and researcher named Stephanie Kwolek.
Working at the Wilmington, Delaware DuPont plant in 1964, Kwolek focused on producing a lightweight polymer for tire production. In the lab, Kwolek had succeeded only in making a thin, semi-opaque solution destined for the trash.
Still, Kwolek implored her colleague to put it through spinneret testing, whereupon they realized that the fibers were five times stronger than steel by weight. Kwolek’s discovery started a whole new field of polymer chemistry.
Kwolek then learned that heat-treating the fibers made them even stronger, and by 1971, her material, Kevlar, resembled what it is today. Its uses now include acting as the chief ingredient in bullet-proof vests, armored cars, and bomb-proof materials.
Scotchgard
Flickr/Classic FilmA vintage ad for Scotchgard.
In 1947, high school student Patsy Sherman took an aptitude test. The results suggested she should devote her future to becoming a housewife.
In response, Sherman demanded to take the boys’ version of the test (at the time, male and female students took different tests). When she took the test for male students, her test results said that she should be a scientist.
Sherman seemed to take that recommendation to heart. After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1952 with a degree in chemistry, Sherman went to work for the 3M Company. There, Sherman worked on an experiment to find a new material for jet fuel lines.
A fluorochemical spill on co-worker Samuel Smith’s shoe proved so difficult to remove that it shifted the entire experiment: Sherman and Smith re-focused and used the spill as a protectant against other spills. They patented this compound, named Scotchgard, in 1971 and it is now the most widely used stain repellent in America.
