Bakelite, however, is only one of an indefinite number of such condensation products. As Baeyer said long ago: "It seems that all the aldehydes will, under suitable circumstances, unite with the aromatic hydrocarbons to form resins." So instead of phenol, other coal tar products such as cresol, naphthol or benzene itself may be used. The carbon links (-CH2-, methylene) necessary to hook these carbon rings together may be obtained from other substances than the aldehydes, for instance from the amines, or ammonia derivatives. Three chemists, L.V. Kedman, A.J. Weith and F.P. Broek, working in 1910 on the Industrial Fellowships of the late Robert Kennedy Duncan at the University of Kansas, developed a process using formin instead of formaldehyde. Formin—or, if you insist upon its full name, hexa-methylene-tetramine—is a sugar-like substance with a fish-like smell. This mixed with crystallized carbolic acid and slightly warmed melts to a golden liquid that sets on pouring into molds. It is still plastic and can be bent into any desired shape, but on further heating it becomes hard without the need of pressure. Ammonia is given off in this process instead of water which is the by-product in the case of formaldehyde. The product is similar to bakelite, exactly how similar is a question that the courts will have to decide. The inventors threatened to call it Phenyl-endeka-saligeno-saligenin, but, rightly fearing that this would interfere with its salability, they have named it "redmanol."
A phenolic condensation product closely related to bakelite and redmanol is condensite, the invention of Jonas Walter Aylesworth. Aylesworth was trained in what he referred to as "the greatest university of the world, the Edison laboratory." He entered this university at the age of nineteen at a salary of $3 a week, but Edison soon found that he had in his new boy an assistant who could stand being shut up in the laboratory working day and night as long as he could. After nine years of close association with Edison he set up a little laboratory in his own back yard to work out new plastics. He found that by acting on naphthalene—the moth-ball stuff—with chlorine he got a series of useful products called "halowaxes." The lower chlorinated products are oils, which may be used for impregnating paper or soft wood, making it non-inflammable and impregnable to water. If four atoms of chlorine enter the naphthalene molecule the product is a hard wax that rings like a metal.
Condensite is anhydrous and infusible, and like its rivals finds its chief employment in the insulation parts of electrical apparatus. The records of the Edison phonograph are made of it. So are the buttons of our blue-jackets. The Government at the outbreak of the war ordered 40,000 goggles in condensite frames to protect the eyes of our gunners from the glare and acid fumes.
The various synthetics played an important part in the war. According to an ancient military pun the endurance of soldiers depends upon the strength of their soles. The new compound rubber soles were found useful in our army and the Germans attribute their success in making a little leather go a long way during the late war to the use of a new synthetic tanning material known as "neradol." There are various forms of this. Some are phenolic condensation products of formaldehyde like those we have been considering, but some use coal-tar compounds having no phenol groups, such as naphthalene sulfonic acid. These are now being made in England under such names as "paradol," "cresyntan" and "syntan." They have the advantage of the natural tannins such as bark in that they are of known strength and can be varied to suit.
This very grasping compound, formaldehyde, will attack almost anything, even molecules many times its size. Gelatinous and albuminous substances of all sorts are solidified by it. Glue, skimmed milk, blood, eggs, yeast, brewer's slops, may by this magic agent be rescued from waste and reappear in our buttons, hairpins, roofing, phonographs, shoes or shoe-polish. The French have made great use of casein hardened by formaldehyde into what is known as "galalith" (i.e., milkstone). This is harder than celluloid and non-inflammable, but has the disadvantages of being more brittle and of absorbing moisture. A mixture of casein and celluloid has something of the merits of both.
The Japanese, as we should expect, are using the juice of the soy bean, familiar as a condiment to all who patronize chop-sueys or use Worcestershire sauce. The soy glucine coagulated by formalin gives a plastic said to be better and cheaper than celluloid. Its inventor, S. Sato, of Sendai University, has named it, according to American precedent, "Satolite," and has organized a million-dollar Satolite Company at Mukojima.
The algin extracted from the Pacific kelp can be used as a rubber surrogate for water-proofing cloth. When combined with heavier alkaline bases it forms a tough and elastic substance that can be rolled into transparent sheets like celluloid or turned into buttons and knife handles.
In Australia when the war shut off the supply of tin the Government commission appointed to devise means of preserving fruits recommended the use of cardboard containers varnished with "magramite." This is a name the Australians coined for synthetic resin made from phenol and formaldehyde like bakelite. Magramite dissolved in alcohol is painted on the cardboard cans and when these are stoved the coating becomes insoluble.
Tarasoff has made a series of condensation products from phenol and formaldehyde with the addition of sulfonated oils. These are formed by the action of sulfuric acid on coconut, castor, cottonseed or mineral oils. The products of this combination are white plastics, opaque, insoluble and infusible.
Since I am here chiefly concerned with "Creative Chemistry," that is, with the art of making substances not found in nature, I have not spoken of shellac, asphaltum, rosin, ozocerite and the innumerable gums, resins and waxes, animal, mineral and vegetable, that are used either by themselves or in combination with the synthetics. What particular "dope" or "mud" is used to coat a canvas or form a telephone receiver is often hard to find out. The manufacturer finds secrecy safer than the patent office and the chemist of a rival establishment is apt to be baffled in his attempt to analyze and imitate. But we of the outside world are not concerned with this, though we are interested in the manifold applications of these new materials.