WALLACE HUME CAROTHERS

On April 26, 2008 in General

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April 27, 2008 is the 112th birth anniversary of one of the greatest inventors, Wallace Hume Carothers. Hailing from Iowa, he was an organic chemist by training, obtained his Ph.D. from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Subsequently, he had a teaching position at Harvard University, from where he was lured by Dr. Elmer K. Bolton, head of Organic Chemistry Division at Du Pont. He is best known as the inventor of Nylon outside of organic/polymer chemistry circles, and is also known for his accomplishments and achievements in synthetic chemistry within the circles. For instance, at a time when the existence of macromolecules was still being debated, and generally less accepted, Wallace Carothers synthesized a compound with molecular weight exceeding 12,000, much greater than the 4200 molecular weight synthetic compound made by Emil Fischer, which was then the highest molecular weight for any compound made synthetically. Wallace Carothers laid the ground work for polymer science by making several families of polymers, such as polyesters, polyamides, “alkyl” polymers etc. This has prompted one prominent scientist to observe: “No investigator has excelled Wallace Hume Carothers in advancing our knowledge of high polymer chemistry and at the same time providing a basis for the development of technically useful synthetic polymeric materials”. Sadly, two days after his 41st birthday in 1937, Wallace Carothers committed suicide, thus abruptly ending one of the most prolific scientific careers. Here, the author wishes to examine the scientific and technological contributions that Carothers has made, through a cursory examination of his publication and patent list.

A quick search in the scientific database Scopus (www.scopus.com, Scopus is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V.) for “Wallace Carothers” under “authors” yields 56 hits, almost all of which except two are in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (the exceptions are papers in Transactions of the Faraday Society and Chemical Reviews). His early work (probably a culmination of his graduate and post-doctoral work) appears to be on the Platinum-based reduction catalysts, and the study of resulting compounds such as alcohols and amines. In 1929, the publication “Studies on polymerization and ring formation. I. An introduction to the general theory of condensation polymers” sets the stage for the rest of his work, and indeed for the entire subject of polymer science. Taking into account that he joined Du Pont in 1928, it is commendable that within a year he was able to produce results. It was noted by Matthew Hermes in his biography of Wallace Carothers that Wallace had been pondering over the question of polymers even while at Harvard.

Searching for “Wallace Carothers” on esp@cenet (ep.espacenet.com) under “inventors” gives 92 hits. Of these 56 are US patents, 34 Canadian, 1 German and 1 French patent. The earliest patent applied for was titled “Alkylene ester of polybasic acids” on Aug 1, 1929 (where he is the sole inventor), and granted on Aug 27, 1935; while the earliest granted patent was “Method of manufacturing fermentation glycerol”, which was filed on Oct 11, 1930 and granted on November 21, 1933 (one of two inventors). On a side note, it can be seen that even as early as 1930s, average examination time for patents in the chemical arts seems to be around 3-6 years!!! At that time, the number of patent applications filed with the patent office was definitely but a mere fraction of what the patent offices see today.

After two “lean” years in 1929 and 1930 when he had only 2 US patents applied for per year, Carothers had the most prolific year as a technologist in 1931, with as many as 15 US patent applications. Then, in 1932 he had a slightly “slower” year with only 4 US patent applications, which was followed by a period between 1933-1936 when he averaged 6 US patent applications per year. In 1937, before he died in April, he had filed another 9 applications with the US patent office- the last of which was filed on April 9, 1937, mere twenty days before his death. He was averaging about 2 patent applications per month, which when extrapolated would give him an incredible 25 patent applications in that year! Unfortunately, there were no more US patent applications after that- it is understandable as death has been known to be a cause for decreased productivity.

Following his death, there seems to have been a flurry of patenting activity in Canada, many of which were under the assignee Canadian Ind, sometimes with a co-assignee Wilmington Trust Company.

It is also interesting to note that in the 92 patents filed, he was the sole inventor in 48 of them. A closer look at all the US patent applications (the original country for filing of all patents, apparently) shows that among the 56 applications, he was a sole inventor in 25 of them. This is quite remarkable in that the patent applications are very diverse in that some of them deal with new and useful compositions, while others are directed towards a product, as is obvious by the title. For example, the titles of some of the product oriented patents include, “Stocking and method for producing same”, “Fishing Tackle”, “Polymeric Bristle Manufacture” etc. This reflects on the intellectual abilities of Wallace Carothers and how focused he was on not only developing the new science but also ensuring the practical aspects of it were addressed.

This was Wallace Carothers, as seen through the databases, as would be seen by a patent searcher/analyst. It does paint a very interesting picture, and possibly does justice to him. The author, being a student of polymer science, holds Wallace Hume Carothers in high regard, and indeed considers him a hero. He wishes children can see him in the same light, and industries can sell bobble-head dolls and action figures of Wallace Carothers along with Pokemon® and Transformers®.

The author wishes to thank Dr, Matthew Hermes for the biography “Enough for One Lifetime Wallace Carothers Inventor of Nylon”. Other sources for this article include those given above and more: www.scopus.com and ep.espacenet.com, www.uspto.gov etc.

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