Julian Werner Hill

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Julian Werner Hill (born September 4, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri , † January 28, 1996 in Hockessin , Delaware ) was an American chemist who was involved in the development of nylon .

Hill grew up in Warrenton, Missouri , and graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1924 and a PhD in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1928 . Afterwards he was at DuPont in the Experimental Station Laboratories in the group of Wallace H. Carothers . He developed a cold drawing method for polyester fiber production, which was used by Carothers and Hill in 1934 to develop nylon (polyamide) as a synthetic fiber.

He became Assistant Director of the Chemistry Department in Research at DuPont and served on its steering committee from 1932 to 1951. He then worked at DuPont in promoting academic programs. In 1964 he retired.

In 1931 he married Mary Louisa "Polly" Butcher, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. He was an avid bird watcher and played the violin. When he was in his early 1940s, he contracted polio, which weakened one leg. After that he had to give up his hobbies squash and figure skating. He was critical of the side effects of plastics and even saw a threat to human survival in an interview in 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biographical data Encyclopedia Britannica
  2. ^ Obituary in the NY Times by David Stout, February 1, 1996