Baekeland, Leo Hendrik

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Photography, film and optics, Synthetic materials

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b. 14 November 1863 Saint-Martens-Latern, Belgium

d. 23 February 1944 Beacon, New York, USA

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Belgian/American inventor of the Velox photographic process and the synthetic plastic Bakélite.

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The son of an illiterate shoemaker, Baekeland was first apprenticed in that trade, but was encouraged by his mother to study, with spectacular results. He won a scholarship to Gand University and graduated in chemistry. Before he was 21 he had achieved his doctorate, and soon afterwards he obtained professorships at Bruges and then at Gand. Baekeland seemed set for a distinguished academic career, but he turned towards the industrial applications of chemistry, especially in photography.

Baekeland travelled to New York to further this interest, but his first inventions met with little success so he decided to concentrate on one that seemed to have distinct commercial possibilities. This was a photographic paper that could be developed in artificial light; he called this "gas light" paper Velox, using the less sensitive silver chloride as a light-sensitive agent. It proved to have good properties and was easy to use, at a time of photography's rising popularity. By 1896 the process began to be profitable, and three years later Baekeland disposed of his plant to Eastman Kodak for a handsome sum, said to be $3–4 million. That enabled him to retire from business and set up a laboratory at Yonkers to pursue his own research, including on synthetic resins. Several chemists had earlier obtained resinous products from the reaction between phenol and formaldehyde but had ignored them. By 1907 Baekeland had achieved sufficient control over the reaction to obtain a good thermosetting resin which he called "Bakélite". It showed good electrical insulation and resistance to chemicals, and was unchanged by heat. It could be moulded while plastic and would then set hard on heating, with its only drawback being its brittleness. Bakelite was an immediate success in the electrical industry and Baekeland set up the General Bakelite Company in 1910 to manufacture and market the product. The firm grew steadily, becoming the Bakélite Corporation in 1924, with Baekeland still as active President.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

President, Electrochemical Society 1909. President, American Chemical Society 1924. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1936.

Further Reading

J.Gillis, 1965, Leo Baekeland, Brussels.

A.R.Matthis, 1948, Leo H.Baekeland, Professeur, Docteur ès Sciences, chimiste, inventeur et grand industriel, Brussels.

J.K.Mumford, 1924, The Story of Bakélite.

C.F.Kettering, 1947, memoir on Baekeland, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 24 (includes a list of his honours and publications).

LRD