Bakelite

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Typical Bakelite products

The Bakelite GmbH and later Bakelite AG was from 1910 to 2004 a German company for the production of plastics.

In 1905 Leo Hendrik Baekeland developed Bakelite , a thermosetting plastic based on phenolic resin . In 1907 he received a US patent for the manufacturing process and in Germany in 1908. In February 1909 he presented his invention in the United States before the New York club, the chemist, in May of next year, he founded a minority stake along with Julius Rütgers the Bakelite GmbH in Erkner in Berlin . For the production of Bakelite, large amounts of phenol were necessary, which at the time was a waste product from the hard coal distillation of the Rütgerswerke .

Baekeland himself founded the General Bakelite Company in the USA in 1910 , which held the patents. Since the patented Bakelite was often plagiarized, Baekeland took consistent action against it. One of the plagiarists, Sir Swinburne, sold his phenolic plastic under the name "Damard" (derived from the English "damn hard"). After several years of litigation, the competing firms Damard Laqueurs Co. and other sued companies ( Redmanol Co. , Condensite Co. ) merged with Baekeland's company to form a large corporation, General Bakelite Corporation , which was founded in 1939 after Baekeland retired Union Carbide was taken over.

From 1910 Bakelite GmbH in Erkner was the first company in the world to produce plastic parts on an industrial scale. The products were diverse, from housings and fuses (because of the insulating properties of Bakelite) to everyday objects (telephones, radios, fountain pens , and so on) to military applications (detonators, aircraft propellers). Bakelite could be pressed into any desired shape during production, but afterwards it was no longer malleable like thermoplastics. It was heat-resistant, insoluble, inexpensive to manufacture, and did not conduct electricity. However, it could only be produced in dark shades that darkened when exposed to sunlight.

In 1927 the patents on Baekeland's manufacturing process expired and numerous other manufacturers entered the market. The company had a spacious exhibition stand on the grounds of the Leipzig Technical Fair and its own building in Leipzig's old town - the “Bakelite House” on the market.

After the end of the Second World War , Bakelite GmbH in Erkner was first dismantled and then expropriated. In 1948, VEB Plasta Erkner was re-established at the Erkner location . The Bakelite GmbH , however, moved to the West Zone to Iserlohn-Letmathe . Between 1950 and 1952, the Bakelite factory there was built and put into operation.

Numerous other types of plastic came onto the market in the 1950s. Among other things, they had the advantage that they could be produced in any desired color. The phenolic resins still remained in the market, but they were now used more in housings, printed circuit boards or insulators.

In 1957 the plant in Duisburg-Meiderich started production of phenolic resins, and in 1959 the production of epoxy resins was added. In 1976 the company acquired the Frielendorf plant near Kassel. From the end of the 1980s, Bakelite AG bought numerous companies in Europe (Italy, Finland, Spain) and Asia (Japan, South Korea) or linked them through cooperations.

In 2003 Bakelite achieved a turnover of 540 million euros with around 1700 employees. It was one of the leading European manufacturers of phenolic and epoxy resins as well as thermosetting molding compounds.

In 2004, the owner sold Rutgers AG , the Bakelite AG to the Borden Chemicals, headquartered in the US. In 2005, this merged several business areas to form Hexion Specialty Chemicals , which today still owns the brand rights to Bakelite and operates the German production sites. At the end of 2010, Hexion merged with Momentive Performance Materials . Both companies remained independent and tried to save costs through cooperation in the overhead area.

The history of the Bakelite company is listed under the name Momentive and together with Rütgers Chemicals in the Route of Industrial Culture. In 2003 a Bakelite Museum was opened in Kierspe . Several thousand exhibits are shown in changing exhibitions.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b NRW Foundation: Bakelite , accessed on November 5, 2017.
  2. ^ Company history ( Memento from April 4, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) on the former website of Bakelite AG
  3. ↑ Chemical News of Rutgers AG for the sale of Bakelite AG, October 8, 2004
  4. ^ City of Kierspe (local history museum): Bakelite Museum , accessed on November 5, 2017.

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 48.6 ″  N , 7 ° 37 ′ 16.6 ″  E