Reginald Oswald Gibson

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Reginald Oswald Gibson (born September 30, 1902 in Camberwell , London, † July 22, 1983 in Tarvin, Chester ) was a British chemist who invented polyethylene on March 27, 1933 together with Eric William Fawcett at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) .

He received his bachelor's degree from University College London in 1924 , his master’s degree in 1928, and worked for Laporte Chemicals Ltd. and was with ICI from 1926 to 1933. The company was interested in high pressure chemistry and therefore sent him to Antonius MJF Michels in Amsterdam, with whom ICI was working. He received his doctorate from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1933 . At ICI he undertook high pressure experiments in Winnington, hoping to find useful results for dye development. By chance he found polyethylene with Fawcett, but the experiments were dangerous and were therefore interrupted. Also, the manufacture of polyethylene could not be reliably reproduced. Meanwhile, interest in the substance was lost at ICI and Gibson and Fawcett were entrusted with other tasks. It wasn't until the end of 1935 that Michael Willcox Perrin finally succeeded in reproducible production at ICI.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Anthony Travis, Nitrogen Capture, Springer 2018, p. 354