-Wallace Carothers
Carothers sought not only to prove Staudinger's theories, but to refine
them. He attempted to prove his theories by creating macromolecules
in the laboratory to show that macromolecules could exist. This led
him to develop an entirely new way to make polymers, called step-growth
polymerization, in which many small molecules would be joined together
covalently to form giant macromolecules. His interest in polymers also
brought Carothers into the field of synthetic rubber. This led to the
development of polychloroprene rubber.
And finally, through his work in polymers he was able to begin refining
Staudinger's theories with the help of Paul
J. Flory. Flory continued his work after the death of Carothers
and formulated theories that are still used to describe polymer behavior
today.
The research of Carothers, along with that of Austrian scientist Herman Mark, proved that
polymers were indeed macromolecules. Today the terms
polymer and macromolecule are used interchangeably. So important was the
development of macromolecular theory, and the means to create synthetic macromolecules, that
Hermann Staudinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1953, and Paul J. Flory
received the same honor in 1974.
Wallace Carothers didn't invent macromolecular theory. This theory was first developed by
Hermann Staudinger in Germany to explain the behavior of materials like natural rubber and
cotton, which were called polymers by scientists. He proposed that such materials
were made of long chain-like molecules containing thousands of atoms, joined together
by the same type of
covalent bonds
that joined the atoms of smaller molecules. He called the
giant molecules
macromolecules.
This theory was rejected by many
scientists as absurd. Rather, they thought materials such as natural rubber and cotton were
made from small molecules which clustered together by means of unknown forces. They called
these clusters colloids. Carothers could not accept this idea because the forces
holding the supposed clusters together were never clearly defined. Also, these forces were
not found anywhere else in nature. Carothers wanted a theory in which polymers were
governed by the same rules as all the other matter in the universe.
"The idea that natural high polymers involve some principle of molecular structures peculiar to
themselves and not capable of being simulated by synthetic materials is too strongly suggestive
of the vital hypothesis, which preceded the dawn of organic chemistry, to be considered."
References
1. Carothers, Wallace. "Polymerization", Chem. Reviews, 1931, 8, 353-426.
2. Furukawa, Yasu. Inventing Polymer Science. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.
3. Hermes, Matthew. Enough for One Lifetime: Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society; Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1996.