Elmer Keiser Bolton facts for kids

Elmer Keiser Bolton (born June 23, 1886 – died July 30, 1968) was an important American chemist. He worked as a research director for DuPont. He is famous for helping to create neoprene, a type of synthetic rubber. He also led the research that discovered nylon, the world's first fully synthetic fiber.

Early Life and Education

Elmer Bolton was born in Frankford, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the oldest of two brothers. His father owned a furniture store. Elmer went to public school and then to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1908.

After Bucknell, he went to Harvard University. He earned his Master's degree in 1910 and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1913. His main teacher was Charles Loring Jackson. Bolton's research was about the chemistry of periodoquinones.

Time in Germany

In 1913, Bolton won a special scholarship called the Sheldon Fellowship. He used it to work for two years at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute near Berlin, Germany. He worked with Professor Richard Willstätter. Bolton studied anthocyanins, which are natural pigments that give plants their color. He published three papers about finding and understanding these pigments.

Willstätter was impressed by Bolton's skills. He also noticed Bolton sometimes made mistakes with numbers. Willstätter joked, "You must have been a bank teller." Bolton surprised him by saying he actually had been a bank teller to pay for college!

Bolton learned a lot from Willstätter's careful way of doing research. He also saw how German universities and industries worked together. This was very different from the United States at the time. He was also interested in Germany's efforts to create artificial rubber. This work later helped DuPont develop neoprene rubber.

Family Life

Bolton married Margarite L. Duncan in 1916. They had three children: a daughter and two sons. He retired from DuPont in 1951 after a very successful career. He passed away on July 30, 1968, at the age of 82.

Working at DuPont

Before World War I (which started in 1914), Germany was a world leader in the organic chemical industry. Most chemicals used in America, like dyes for clothes and some medicines, came from Germany. When the war began, this trade stopped. This created a problem for America, but also a chance for American chemical companies to grow.

When Bolton returned from Germany in 1915, he saw American chemists trying hard to make these chemicals. The DuPont Company needed chemists, so they hired Bolton in 1915.

Early Roles and Principles

Bolton joined the Chemical Department at DuPont's Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware. He started by working on making glycerol. By 1916, he was chosen to lead a new group focused on making dyes. The United States didn't know much about making dyes then. So, Bolton traveled to England to learn about their methods.

Later, he became an advisor on dyes. In 1919, he became the manager of the Organic Division. During this time, he learned a lot about creating manufacturing processes. He developed two key ideas:

• Research must be cost-effective and time-efficient.
• A manufacturing process should first be perfected using pure materials. Then, it should be adjusted to use materials available in a factory.

Expanding Research

In 1922, DuPont changed how it organized research. Bolton became the director of research for the Dyestuffs Department. He quickly showed his skill. Making dyes requires many intermediate compounds. Bolton realized these could be used in many other areas.

By 1923, his lab was working on chemicals to speed up the making of synthetic rubber. Soon after, they expanded their research to include antioxidants for gasoline and rubber, floatation agents, insecticides, seed disinfectants, and making large amounts of tetraethyllead.

Developing Synthetic Rubber

In the early 1920s, there were concerns about the supply of natural rubber. After World War I, there was too much rubber, which made prices very low. In 1922, England passed the Stevenson Act to protect rubber producers by limiting how much rubber could be made.

However, this worried the United States. More rubber was needed for the growing number of cars. Making practical, durable, and affordable synthetic rubber had been a challenge for chemists for decades. Bolton saw this as a good time for DuPont to start research on synthetic rubber. This research really began in 1925 when rubber prices were high.

The Discovery of Neoprene

Bolton's group started by trying to make rubber from butadiene. At first, they didn't make much progress. In late 1925, Bolton met chemist Julius Nieuwland from the University of Notre Dame. Nieuwland had found a way to make a polymer from acetylene using a cuprous oxide catalyst. The problem was that this polymer would explode if hit! But Bolton believed the process could be changed to make a stable compound.

Bolton brought Nieuwland to DuPont as a consultant. Nieuwland taught the DuPont chemists how to use his catalyst. They developed a special reactor that could make a good amount of the stable polymer Bolton wanted. This polymer was very resistant to chemicals, but it broke down when exposed to light.

In 1927, DuPont's Chemical Director, C.M.A. Stine, got $250,000 for a major research project on synthetic rubber. In 1928, Wallace Carothers, a Harvard instructor, was hired to lead the new group. Bolton worked within this group. By 1929, he found that his polymer could be easily changed into 2-chlorobutadiene (called chloroprene). This new material was resistant to both chemicals and light, and it had the properties of synthetic rubber.

The new material was announced on November 2, 1931. It was given the trademark name Duprene, which is now known as neoprene. By this time, the Stevenson Act had been canceled, and the Great Depression had begun. Rubber prices were low, and the new neoprene cost twenty times more than natural rubber. So, DuPont's first neoprene wasn't used to replace natural rubber. Instead, it was used in special situations where a rubber that was more resistant to oils and outdoor damage was needed. It helped expand the uses of rubber, both natural and artificial.

Creating Synthetic Fibers

When Wallace Carothers joined DuPont in 1928, one of his group's goals was to develop new synthetic fibers for textiles. At that time, natural materials like latex and cellulose were common. Rayon, a semi-synthetic fiber, had recently improved and was changing the textile industry. Some fully synthetic materials like bakelite were also known, but they couldn't be made into thin fibers or spun into thread. This meant there was a big chance to create new threads and yarn from synthetic materials.

Challenges and Breakthroughs

Carothers' group tried to make long chains of molecules from known chemical reactions. They first found that a process called bifunctional esterification could make long molecule chains, now called aliphatic polyesters. These were called superpolymers back then.

A key discovery happened in April 1930 by Julian W. Hill. He saw that these superpolymers could be pulled when melted to form thin, clear fibers. These fibers were much stronger than the original polymers. However, the superpolymers they made either melted too easily, weren't resistant enough to chemicals, or melted at too high a temperature to be spun. By late 1932, the whole project was stopped.

Bolton's Vision for Nylon

Bolton, who was now the Chemistry department director, refused to give up. He likely knew about the re-discovery of polyethylene by Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson in 1933. In early 1934, Bolton encouraged Carothers to continue the research. Carothers decided to look again at polyamides.

Carothers figured out that the problem with earlier polyamides was due to cyclization reactions. So, he tried a different chemical, 9-aminononoic acid, which would not form rings. This gave encouraging results. Carothers' group then made polyamides from various compounds. The best one for development became 5/10 polyamide, made from pentamethylenediamine and sebic acid. It had the right melting point and properties for a fiber, and it could be spun without problems.

At this point, Bolton made a very bold and smart decision. He decided that practical synthetic fibers could not be made from castor oil, which was the only good source of sebacic acid. Using an agricultural product as a main ingredient would mean the new material would have similar production problems as natural fibers. Instead, he wanted to use benzene as the starting material to make both adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine for a 6/6 polyamide.

This new polymer was first made in early 1935. Thanks to new spinning technologies, it could be made into fibers. These fibers were very strong and stretchy. They were not affected by common solvents and melted at 263 °C, which is much higher than ironing temperatures.

Bolton insisted that every part of making this polymer be thoroughly tested in a small pilot plant. He wanted the development to start with pure materials and then be adjusted to use materials available in large amounts for a factory.

On October 27, 1938, DuPont announced it would build a plant in Seaford, Delaware to make nylon. Nylon was the world's first fully synthetic fiber. The Seaford plant was basically a larger version of the pilot plant, and it started up with very few problems.

Awards and Honors

Elmer Bolton received many awards and honors for his important work:

• Bucknell University:
  • Honorary D.Sc. degree (1932)
  • Board of Trustees (1937-1967)
  • Trustee Emeritus (1967-1968)
• University of Delaware, Honorary D.Sc. degree (1942)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology visiting committees (1938-1939)
• Harvard University visiting committees (1940-1941)
• American Chemical Society:
  • regional director (1936-1938)
  • director-at-large (1940-1943)
• Industrial and Engineering Chemistry and Chemical Engineering News Advisory Board (1948-1949)
• The Chemical Industry Medal (1941)
• The Perkin Medal (1945)
• Elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1946)
• The Willard Gibbs Medal (1954)