Made of a combination of phenol and formaldehyde, Bakelite is a type of plastic that became popular during the 1930s and 40s as a material not only for jewelry, but for other consumer goods like ...

Why are we asking for donations? Why are we asking for donations? This site is free thanks to our community of supporters. Voluntary donations from readers like you keep our news accessible for ...

In 1907, Belgian-born American chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland made one of the most transformative discoveries of the 20th century: Bakelite. It was the first wholly synthetic plastic and ushered in an ...

Groot is an avid collector of Bakelite plastic products, with some 4,000 items in his collection. Karraker is the great-grandson of the inventor of Bakelite, Leo Hendrik Baekeland. They met at a ...

Today, we all carry a smartphone in our purse or pocket with more computing power than an Apollo spacecraft. However, our lines of communication weren't always so technologically advanced. In the ...

When Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland created the first entirely synthetic plastic in 1909, it revolutionized the way many consumer goods were manufactured. Baekeland called his plastic “Bakelite” and ...

Leo Hendrik Baekeland may be the most important inventor you've never heard of. Baekeland, who discovered the first synthetic plastic, is the subject of a new documentary, “All Things Bakelite,” ...

For plastics aficionados and others, the movie you’ve been waiting for arrives next month. It tells the story of Leo Baekeland, who in 1907 changed the world forever. Baekeland was a Belgian-American ...

The first company to ever sell fully synthetic plastic—the Bakelite Corp., established in 1922—advertised it as “The Material of a Thousand Uses.” It had that right: Today, beyond the plates we eat ...

Specialty resin maker Bakelite Synthetics has acquired LRBG Chemicals Inc. for an undisclosed price. The acquisition "allows Bakelite to expand its footprint into Canada and to better serve the ...