Wallace Carothers
life and Education of Wallace Carothers
Wallace Hume Carothers was born on April 27, 1896. He was born in Burlington, Iowa. He was the son of Ira and Mary Carothers, and was the oldest children in the family. When he was five years old, his family moved to Des Moines, Iowa. There he studied in high school. He started showing interest in science during high school years and started reading the scientific literature. During his studies, he liked to play with different tools, instruments, and other mechanical items, and liked to spend time in experimenting. He used to have a thorough preparation of subjects, and had a habit of leaving no task unfinished or done in a careless way. Wallace graduated from a public school located in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1914. In the autumn of same year, he was sent to Capitol City Commercial College of Des Moines, an institution where his father was a Vice-President. In July 1915, he completed the accountancy and secretary curriculum (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu).
In September 1915, he went to Tarkio College in Missouri. Meanwhile, he accepted to work as an assistant in the Commercial Department. He kept on working in this position for about two years, and then started working as an assistant in English (Adams 294). Initially, he studied English, but with the passage of time, he started showing more interest in chemistry. His interest in chemistry and physical sciences was of such level that he was very good in these subjects as compared to fellow students. He was also considered as the brightest student of the class. During the last two years in college, he also spent much of his time and energy in dealing with student affairs (Adams 295). Wallace completed bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1920. He got admission in the University of Illinois, and got his master’s degree in 1921. During the years from 1923 to 1924, he was able to get Carr fellowship, and ultimately obtained his doctorate in the year 1924 (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu).
He did most of his work in organic chemistry. His thesis completed under the direction and supervision of Dr. Roger Adams. He worked on the platinum-oxide platinum-black based catalytic reduction of aldehydes. He also worked on the effects of poisons and promoters on this catalyst in reducing several organic compounds. His minors were mathematics and physical chemistry. However, he showed almost same level of brilliance in all of his courses as, for example, his knowledge of physical chemistry was thorough and more comprehensive as compared to the students majoring in physical chemistry. In research too, he showed outstanding earlier accomplishments. At the time of graduation, he was thought to be among the most brilliant students, who had ever taken the doctor’s degree (Adams 296).
Dr. Carothers started showing great interest in reading books from the very start of his life. He was a great reader of English literature, and read many books by famous writers. He also had a singing voice that could get a popularity with training. He also loved great masters in music, and collected many of their phonograph records. He often said that if there would be another chance of living a life, he would devote his life to music (Adams 299).
Dr. Carothers married Helen Everett Sweetman on February, 1936. She was from Wilmington, Delaware, and got her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Delaware in 1933. Helen worked in the patent division of the chemical department of the DuPont Company from the year 1933 to 1936. A daughter, named Jane, was born to the couple in November 1937 (Adams 293).
Dr. Carothers was a brilliant person, but he faced frequent bouts of depression in his life. He felt that he achieved a little. On April 28, 1937, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He checked into the Philadelphia Hotel on April 29, and committed suicide by drinking lemon juice filled with cyanide salt. At the time of his death, he was 41 years old (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu).
Career of Dr. Carothers
During junior year of Wallace, Arthur M. Pardee, who was a chemistry instructor, moved to another institution, and Wallace started working temporarily as an instructor as Tarkio was not able to find another instructor in a short period. In the year 1926, Dr. Carothers started working as an instructor of organic chemistry at Harvard University (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu).
His love for research showed that he would not like to work only as a teacher. He spent a huge amount of his spare time in working on research problems of his interest. Many of his friends tried to move him out of his sustained and constant level of passion for research work, but that was of no use. He was found to be inspired by many things that were worthy of investigation in the laboratory (Adams 296). In the year 1928, he left Harvard University, and started working as the head of research in organic chemistry at the DuPont central laboratory, the "Experimental Station" in Wilmington, Delaware. He conducted most of his research in polymerization (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu).
Contributions of Dr. Carothers in the field of Chemistry
As noted earlier, Dr. Carothers showed huge interest in research work. He was particularly interested in the 1916 work of Irving Langmuir on the valence electrons, as he wanted to work on the implications of that study in organic chemistry. With that idea in mind, he performed laboratory studies and published them as his first independent contribution to the Journal of the American Chemical Society. His work was on Phenyl Isocvanate as well as Diazobenzene-Imide. His second independent contribution was on the Double Bond. In the study, he presented the electronic properties of the double bond and showed a well-illustrated workable application of the electronic theory to organic chemistry for the first time (Adams 295-296). He also measured the base strength of many amines. His research on thermal decomposition of alkali alkyls demonstrated the inherent characteristics of the simplest organic anions. Dr. Carothers performed a detailed research on acetylene polymers as well as their derivatives. Vinylacetylene and divinylacetylene were available to him, and he performed a thorough and detailed research on these substances (300).
In DuPont, he worked on the structure of substances having high molecular weight. He also studied the formation of those substances by polymerization. During the years from 1928 to 1936, Dr. Carothers contributed a lot to the theory of organic chemistry and made several discoveries of commercial importance (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu). In the year 1929, he became Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and in the year 1930, he became an Editor of Organic Synthesis (Adams 298). He also worked enthusiastically for the organic division of the American Chemical Society, and was one of the most frequently invited speakers in different chemical groups (299). In the year 1935, Dr. Carothers was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and he was the first organic chemist related to the industry, who was elected. In summer of the same year, he presented his study entitled "Polymers and the Theory of Polymerization" at the Johns Hopkins summer colloquium (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu).
Although the works of Dr. Carothers got huge acceptance but there were some flaws in the product, so he worked on further cyclic compounds. One of those newly investigated compounds was able to give an intriguing aroma and marketed as Astrotone. It was considered as the first synthetic musk. Dr. Carothers and his team worked on more chemical substances, and developed a polymer known as synthetic rubber or neoprene (MIT, lemelson.mit.edu).
Among the discoveries of Dr. Carothers, two were of significant importance (Vaught, scholarsphere.psu.edu);
one was neoprene synthetic rubber, and
the other was a class of materials referred to as super polymers. One of the most important super polymers studied by Dr. Carothers was polyhexamethyleneadipamide; fiber 66.
Dr. Carothers found that the addition of hydrogen chloride to monovinylacetylene results in the formation of 2-chloro-i, 3-butadiene, also known as chloroprene. This substance was structurally analogous to isoprene but has the ability to polymerize hundreds of times faster than conventionally available materials, resulting in much superior synthetic rubbers (Adams 300).
In the year 1931, political and trade-related issues between the U.S. and Japan disturbed the availability of silk in the U.S., as Japan was one of the most important sources of silk. Therefore, companies in the country started working on the development of synthetic fiber to replace the problem due to decreased availability or expensive nature of the fiber, and DuPont was one of those companies working on artificial fiber. In the year 1934, Dr. Carothers and his collaborators started working on the strong and elastic fiber having a melting point of more than 195°C. He designed a strategy to synthesize huge molecules, and in the same year, he and his team were able to develop first long, flexible, and strong strands of synthetic polymer fibers in a test tube. They found that the synthetic fiber developed by them has the same properties to that of natural fibers such as cotton, wool, and silk. In fact, the synthetic fiber was found to be of superior quality as compared to the natural fiber in many ways (MIT, lemelson.mit.edu).
The newly developed super-polymer entered the market in the year 1937 as toothbrush bristles and advertised as better than anything obtained from the skin or hide of animals. In the year 1938, DuPont announced the invention of nylon as the “first man-made organic textile fabric” developed from minerals. Nylon stockings were introduced in 1939 and were put on sale in the year 1940 – those were a big hit (MIT, lemelson.mit.edu).
During the research, he published 31 studies having general theories on polymers. He suggested a general theory of condensation-polymerization. He also presented a logical terminology for use in the field of chemistry. He did not give only nylon, but also gave a huge knowledge about natural polymers and their formation as, for example, his work was helpful in dealing with hydrocarbons, polyesters, polyanhydrides, and polyamides (Adams 301).
Works Cited
Adams, R. (1939). Wallace Hume Carothers. Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 20, 293-309.
MIT. “Wallace Hume Carothers”. Lemelson-MIT Program. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2016 <http://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/wallace-hume-carothers>.
Vaught, M. A. "The Life of Dr. Wallace Hume Carothers". The Pennsylvania State University, 28 Apr. 2014. Web. 11 Apr. 2016 <https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/downloads/5712ms06j>.
