Leo Baekeland

Leo Hendrik Baekeland was a Belgian-born chemist who spent most of his career in the United States and is known as the father of the plastics industry. He first made his fortune in photography, inventing Velox photographic paper in 1893, the first commercially successful photographic printing paper, and selling his company to Eastman Kodak in 1899 before turning to synthetic resin chemistry. In 1907 he invented Bakelite, a plastic made from phenol and formaldehyde that, unlike earlier semi-synthetic materials, permanently retained its molded shape after heating and resisted heat and electricity, making it the first fully synthetic plastic and the material that opened what became known as the age of plastics. Its excellent electrical insulation and heat resistance made it widely used in radios, telephones and electrical components, and by the time of his death world production of Bakelite had reached roughly 175,000 tons a year across more than 15,000 different products; he held more than 100 patents and received the Perkin Medal in 1916 and the Franklin Medal in 1940.