Leo Baekeland Biography, Age, Weight, Height, Friend, Like, Affairs, Favourite, Birthdate & Other

Leo Henricus Arthur Baekeland was an American chemist well-known for his discovery of photographic paper Velox and polymeric plastic Bakelite. His creation of low-cost, incombustible and flexible plastic Bakelite that paved the way for the modernized plastic industry earned him the epithet “The Father of the Plastics Industry”. Originally a Belgian, he studied in the University of Ghent after receiving a scholarship from the port city of Glent in northwest Belgium.

Post Ph.D he served at the University of Ghent as an associate professor of chemistry. While visiting New York on a fellowship he was convinced to settle there. He joined a photographic company where he served for a few years and discovered the photographic paper Velox that consists of a gelatine silver chloride coating and can be created by artificial light. After a few years he sold the rights of the photographic paper, which by that time became a commercial success, to the Eastman Kodak Company.

He ventured into many other chemical technological projects of which his discovery of Bakelite formed using phenol and formaldehyde was revolutionary. It marked the beginning of an era of plastics. After acquiring a patent of his invention he established the General Bakelite Company. During his later stage of life he sold his business to Union Carbide.