A
Chemical Engineering TimelineA
Chemical Engineering Timeline
(Please forgive my digression into other topics)
TIMELINE KEY
Topics
Relating to Chemical Engineering.
A
Digression into Miscellaneous Topics (often Chemistry)
Concerning
the Rise and Fall of Nations (Wars & Such)
"Enough already...go to the end."
1635:
John Winthrop, Jr., opens America's first chemical plant
in Boston. They produce saltpeter (used in gunpowder) and alum (used
in tanning).
1720's:
Newcomen's steam engine comes into general use.
1749:
England begins a Lead-Chamber Method to produce sulfuric acid.
1750's:
Classic British Industrial Revolution begins (often said to last
until 1830's, however The Industrial Revolution continues to this day).
1760's:
James Watt improves on the Newcomen Engine.
1776:
The United States declares its independence from England.
1781:
The Americans defeat the British in the last major battle of the
War of Independence at Yorktown, Virginia.
1787:
The U.S. Constitution is written.
1789:
Nicholas Le Blanc develops his process for converting common
salt into soda ash.
1802:
The E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (Du Pont) is founded and
builds a gunpowder factory along the banks of the Brandywine River
near Wilmington, Delaware.
1846:
An ether-soaked sponge became the first successful surgical anesthetic
helping to remove a tumor at the Massachusetts General Hospital
in Boston.
1848:
The American-Mexican War comes to a close.
1850's:
The first petroleum refinery consisting of a one-barrel still
is built in Pittsburgh by Samuel Kier.
1853:
Kerosene is extracted from petroleum.
1854:
The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company becomes the first oil company
in the U.S.
1955:
Benjamin Silliman, of New Haven, Connecticut, obtain valuable products
by distilling petroleum. They include; tar, naphthalene,
gasoline, and various solvents.
1856:
The first coal tar dye is developed by William H. Perkin.
1859:
The first commercially successful U.S. Oil Well is drilled
by E. L. Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania. This 70 foot well
launches the petroleum industry.
1863:
Ernest Solvay perfects his method for producing sodium bicarbonate.
1863:
The British government passes the "Alkali Works Act"
in an attempt to control environmental emissions.
1865:
The Civil War (1861-65) ends.
1865:
The first U.S. petroleum pipeline is built from an oil field near
Titusville, Pennsylvania to a nearby railroad.
1866:
Dynamite is developed by Alfred Nobel.
1866:
Celluloid is invented by a British entrepreneur named Alexander
Parkes ("The Father of Plastics")
1867:
The Typewriter is invented.
1869:
The Transcontinental Railroad is completed as the Golden Spike is
driven in at Promontory Point, Utah.
1869:
Celluloid was produced by John Hyatt in Albany, New York.
The breakthrough came about because of a search for an ivory substitute
that could be used to make billiard balls. Celluloid was the first
synthetic plastic to receive wide commercial use.
1873:
Barbed wire is introduced. Meat becomes plentiful as the cattle
population doubles between 1875 and 1890.
1876:
The Telephone is patented by Alexander Graham Bell.
1876:
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is formed.
1879:
Thomas Edison and Sir Joseph Swan independently devise the
first practical electric lights.
1880:
Andrew Carnage develops his first, large, steal furnace.
1880:
George Davis proposes a "Society of Chemical Engineers"
in England.
1881:
Billy "the Kid" is shot by Pat Garrett.
1882:
Thomas Edison builds the first hydroelectric power plant in
Appleton, Wisconsin.
1882:
Robert Koch discovers the rod-like tubercle bacillus responsible for tuberculosis
(TB).
1883:
Osborne Reynolds published his paper on the Reynolds' Number,
a dimensionless quantity which characterizes laminar and turbulent
flow by relating kinetic (or inertial) forces to viscous
forces within a fluid.
1884:
The World's first Skyscraper begins to be erected in Chicago.
1884:
The Solvay process is transferred to the United States and
the Solvay Process Co. begins making soda ash in Syracuse.
1884:
Viscose Rayon is invented by the French chemist Hilaire Chardonnet.
1885:
The gasoline automobile is developed by Karl Benz. Before
this, gasoline was an unwanted fraction of petroleum which caused many
house fires because of its tendency to explode when placed in Kerosene
lamps.
1886:
The first modern Oil Tanker, the Gluckauf, was built
for Germany by England.
1888:
George Davis provides the blueprint for a new profession as he presents
a series of 12 lectures on Chemical Engineering at the Manchester,
England.
1888:
Jack "the Ripper" kills six women in London.
1888:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology begins "Course
X" (ten), the first four year Chemical Engineering program in
the United States.
1892:
Diesel develops his internal combustion engine.
1892:
Pennsylvania begins its Chemical Engineering curriculum.
1894:
Tulane begins its Chemical Engineering curriculum.
1895:
Linde develops his process for liquefying air.
1895:
The first professional U.S. football game is played in Pennsylvania.
1897:
Badishe produces synthetic Indigo on a commercial scale in Germany.
1898:
The U.S. defeats Spain in the Spanish-American War.
1899:
The first bottle of Aspirin goes on sale to the public.
1900:
John Herreshoff, of the Nichols Chemical Co., develops the first
U.S. contact method for sulfuric acid production.
1901:
J.P. Morgan organizes the U.S. Steel Corporation.
1901:
George Davis publishes a "Handbook of Chemical Engineering."
1901:
Oil Drilling begins in Persia.
1903:
Orville & Wilbur Wright fly the first powered aircraft
at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1903:
The Ford Motor Company is founded.
1903:
Arthur Noyes, a prominent MIT professor, established a Research
Laboratory of Physical Chemistry.
1905:
Einstein has his "miracle year" as he formulates
the Special Theory of Relativity, establishes the Law of Mass-Energy
Equivalence, creates the Brownian Theory of Motion, and formulates
the Photon Theory of Light.
1906:
The San Francisco Earthquake kills hundreds and destroys the city.
1906:
Ludwig Boltzman dies. He has the equation: "S=k ln(W)"
carved on his tombstone in Vienna. Today it is known as the
Boltzman Principle, and provides a statistical relationship
between entropy (S) and the number of ways a system can be
configured (W).
1908:
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is founded.
1908:
Cellophane is discovered by a Swiss chemist named Jacques Brandenberger.
1908:
The General Motors Co. is founded.
1908:
The first "Model T" rolls of the Ford assembly line.
1908:
Dr. Leo Baekeland ("The Father of the Plastics Industry")
discovers Bakelite in his laboratory in Yonkers, N.Y.
1910:
Bakelite production begins at the General Bakelite Company. The
plastic finds widespread use in; electric insulation, electric plugs
and sockets, clock bases, iron handles, and jewelry.
1910:
Synthetic Ammonia is first produced by the Haber Process
in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
1910:
A U.S. Rayon plant is constructed by the American Viscose Co.
1911:
Sir Ernest Rutherford proposes his theory concerning the atomic
nucleus.
1912:
The Titanic sinks, killing 1513 people, after striking an iceberg.
1912:
Piltdown Man is proven a hoax.
1912:
Wilson's cloud chamber allows the detection of protons and electrons.
1913:
The Standard Oil Co. (Indiana) begins the thermal cracking of petroleum
in "Burton Stills".
1913:
Niels Bohr proposes his "solar system" model of the
atom.
1914:
Robert Goddard begins his rocketry experiments.
1914:
World War I begins in Europe.
1915:
The Unit Operations concept is articulated by Arthur Little.
1915:
Ford Motor Co. develops a farm tractor.
1915:
Toxic gas (Chlorine Gas) is used in World War I at the battle
of Ypres. Fritz Haber, primarily known for his ammonia production
process, supervises these deadly "experiments". Later,
his wife pleads with him to stop his work concerning poison gases
and after he refuses she commits suicide.
1915:
The Corning Glass Works begins marketing Pyrex glass.
1916:
William Walker and Warren K. Lewis, two prominent MIT professors,
established a School of Chemical Engineering Practice.
1916:
German saboteurs blow up the U.S. munitions arsenal at Black Tom
Island, New Jersey.
1917:
The U.S. enters World War I.
1917:
A full-sized plant to produce nitric acid from ammonia is built
by the Chemical Construction Co.
1918:
Fritz Haber receives the Nobel Prize for his work on Ammonia
synthesis. However, the award is highly protested because of
his prominent role in developing and delivering poison gas in WWI.
Ironically, Haber is forced to leave his beloved Germany in 1933
because he is part Jewish
1918:
Acetone is produced for the British in Terre Haute, Indiana.
1920's:
Cellulose acetate, acrylics (Lucite & Plexiglas), and
polystyrene can finally be produced in large quantities.
1920:
The 18th Amendment, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic
beverages, goes into effect. Many cases of blindness and death result
as people mistake wood alcohol (methanol) for ethanol.
1920:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology starts an independent
Department of Chemical Engineering.
1920:
The Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) produces Isopropyl Alcohol, the
first commercial petrochemical.
1921:
A 4,500 metric ton stockpile of ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfated
exploded at a chemical plant in Oppau, Germany. The blast
and subsequent fire killed 600, injured 1500, and left 7000 people
homeless.
1922:
Thomas Midgley uses Tetraethyl lead as an antiknock additive
in gasoline.
1922:
Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin develop a tuberculosis vaccine,
BCG.
1922:
The first human diabetes patient is injected with insulin,
mass production of the “wonder drug” soon follows.
1925:
The AIChE begins accreditation of Chemical Engineering programs.
1925:
Rubber antioxidants begin to be used.
1926:
Du Pont and Commercial Solvents begin synthetic methanol production
in the U.S.
1929:
The stock-market crash on "Black Thursday" brings ruin
to thousands of investors.
1929:
Alexander Fleming observes the effect Penicillin has on bacteria.
The breakthrough occurred when he returned to his laboratory after a four
week vacation. An improperly sealed bacteria culture had been accidentally
contaminated by a number of molds and yeasts. One of the
molds had killed the bacteria in the culture.
1930's:
The Wisconsin duo of Hougen & Watson stress the importance of
thermodynamics in Chemical Engineering Education.
1930's
& 40's: Michigan's Katz, Brown, White, Kurata,
Standing, & Sliepcevich help lay down some foundations in phase
equilibria, heat transfer, momentum transfer, and mass
transfer.
1930's:
The U.S. suffers through the Great Depression.
1930's
& 1940's: Systematic analysis of chemical reactors begun by;
Damkohler in Germany, Van Heerden in Holland, and Danckwerts
and Denbigh in England. They explore mass transfer, temperature
variations, flow patterns, and multiple steady states.
1931:
Neoprene synthetic rubber is produced by Du Pont.
1933:
The Imperial Chemical Industries in England discover Polyethylene.
1933:
Du Pont begins production of Rayon tire cord fabrics.
1935:
Wallace H. Carothers, of Du Pont, discovers Nylon.
1936:
Rohm & Haas begins marketing Methyl Methacrylate plastics (PMMA).
1936:
The Houdry Process is used in the Catalytic Cracking of Petroleum.
1937:
Polystyrene is offered to consumers in the U.S. by Dow Chemical.
It finds uses in radios, clock cases, electrical equipment,
and wall tiles.
1938:
World War II begins in Europe.
1939:
Enrico Fermi, Otto Hahn, F. Strassman, Lisa Meitner, and Otto Frish discover
Nuclear Fission.
1939:
Nylon used for women's stockings.
1940's:
Polyethylene (electrical insulation and food packaging), silicones
(lubricants, protective coatings, and high-temperature electronic insulation),
and epoxy (a very strong adhesive) are developed.
1940:
Standard Oil Co. (Indiana) develops Catalytic Reforming to produce
higher octane gasoline and create toluene for TNT. Higher
octane gasoline helped the American and British fighters outperform their
German counterparts.
1940:
First tire from synthetic rubber produced in U.S.
1941:
The United States enters World War II.
1941:
Styrene-Butadiene Rubber first produced in the U.S.
1942:
Polyester resins introduced.
1942:
Enrico Fermi, and a team of scientists, operated the first man-made
nuclear reactor under a football field at the University
of Chicago. A cadmium control rod was suspended over the pile
with a rope. Should something have gone wrong, a scientist was to
cut the rope with an ax, thereby dropping the rod into the reactor, hopefully
solving the problem. Ever since then an emergency shutdown has been called
a SCRAM, which stands for "safety control rod ax man".
1943:
Government owned synthetic rubber plants help boost
war time production.
1943:
DDT, a powerful pesticide, first produced in the U.S.
1944:
Teflon, Tetrafluoroethelene resins, marketed by Du Pont.
1944:
Selman Waksman discovers streptomycin, the first effective anti-tuberculous
drug.
1945:
The U.S. ends World War II by detonating the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima,
Japan.
1945:
After World War II, the U.S. broke Germany's enormous I.G. Farben
into; BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst.
1947:
A barge, the Grandcamp, loaded with fertilizer grade ammonium
nitrate catches fire and explodes destroying a nearby city and
killing 576 in what would later be known as the "Texas City
Disaster".
1947:
The formation of hydrocarbons from synthetic gas by the Fischer-Tropish
Process.
1947:
The first off shore oil is drilled.
1948:
A deadly smog settled over the small steel mill town of Donora,
PA. The noxious air killed 19 and caused thousands to become
ill.
1950's:
Television enters American homes.
1950:
The Korean War begins.
1950's
& 1960's: Minnesota's Mathematical Marvel of Amundson &
Aris stress the importance of mathematical modeling in Chemical
Reactor Engineering. Their work helps encourage greater mathematical
competence in Chemical Engineering Education.
1950's
& 1960's: Wisconsin's Triumvirate of Bird, Stuart, &
Lightfoot reveal the unifying concepts of mass, momentum, and energy
transport. Their textbook, "Transport Phenomenon"
continues to be a phenomenon in Chemical Engineering Education.
1950:
Benzene produced from petroleum.
1951:
The first Fusion Bomb tested.
1952:
Du Pont introduces Mylar polyester film.
1953:
Production of soap exceeded by synthetic detergents.
1953:
The structure of DNA is discovered by Erwin Chargaff.
1954:
Polyisoprene rubber developed.
1955:
General Electric produces synthetic diamond.
1955:
Government sells synthetic rubber plants to private industry.
1957:
The Russians launch Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite.
1957:
General Electric develops polycarbonate plastics.
1959:
The computer control of chemical processes gains credibility.
1959:
Large scale Hydrogen plant, for use as rocket fuel, completed
by Air Products.
1960:
Theodore Maiman builds the first LASER based upon the proposal
of Arthur Schawlow.
1961:
Alan Shepard becomes the first American into space.
1962:
The Russians remove their missiles from Cuba.
1962:
Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring", presents an emotional
plea for protecting human health and the environment from
chemical pesticides.
1965:
American Troops enter the Vietnam War.
1965:
Bottles made from polyvinyl chloride gain market share.
1966:
Fist attempt to control organic solvent emissions made by Los Angeles'
Rule 66.
1968:
Consumption of man-made fibers tops natural fibers in U.S.
1969:
The Apollo 11 mission succeeds by landing Man on the Moon.
1969:
The horribly polluted Cuyahoga River, running through Cleveland,
actually caught on fire.
1970's:
America's heavy dependence on foreign oil results in an Energy
Crisis as the Arabs stop shipment to countries which supported Israel
in the Arab-Israeli Wars.
1970:
America holds its first "Earth Day" on April 22.
1970:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is formed. It consists
of 6,000 employees and has an annual budget of $1.3 billion.
1970:
Congress passes the "Clean Air Act" establishing national
air quality standards.
1972:
Congress passes the "Clean Water Act" to confront water
pollution.
1973:
The last American Troops leave Vietnam.
1973:
Stanley Cohen & Herbert Boyer perform the first experiment in Genetic
Engineering.
1973:
Construction on New York's "World Trade Center" and Chicago's
"Sears Tower" are completed.
1974:
Richard Nixon resigns from office.
Mid
1970's: Toxic releases including: the Kepone tragedy at Hopewell,
VA; the PCB contamination of the Hudson River; and the PBB
poisoning of cows in Michigan keep environment issues in the headlines.
1975:
Catalytic converters are introduced in many automobiles to
meet emissions standards established by the U.S. government.
1975:
Du Pont recognizes the contributions of Nathaniel C. Wyeth. He was responsible
for introducing the plastic soda bottles made from polyethylene
terephthalate (PET) which quickly replaced their glass predecessors.
1975:
McDonald's fast food chain starts using Polystyrene to package
its hamburgers.
1976:
Congress passes the "Toxic Substances Control Act" regulating
toxic chemicals.
1976:
Seymour Cray, of Cray Research, makes the Cray-1 Supercomputer.
1976:
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences reports that chlorofluorocarbons
(Freons) can deplete the Ozone Layer.
1976:
The U.S. bans the use of chloroform in drugs and cosmetics.
1976:
Viking 1 lands on Mars, becoming the first man-made object
to ever soft-land on another planet.
1977:
Raymond Damadian builds his first Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRI)
used to generate 3-D images of the human body using the principles
of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (NMR).
1978:
Chlorofluorcarbons (Freons) are banned as spray propellants
in the U.S. because of fears over the Ozone Layer.
1978:
The U.S. Government begins limiting the amount of lead permited
in gasoline. The action is taken to prevent deterioration
of the platinum catalysts in catalytic converters, not to protect
the public's safety.
1979:
No one is injured, but many are terrified, by an nuclear reactor incident
at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.
1979:
Genetic Engineering succeeds in synthesizing human insulin.
Late
1970's: Love Canal (in New York) and the Valley of Drums
(10,000 leaking hazardous waste drums near West Point, KY) keep environmental
issues in the news and are described as "ticking time bombs."
1980:
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that General Electric can Patent
a microbe used for oil cleanup.
1980:
The "push through tabs" used on today's pop and beer
cans are first introduced.
1980:
The U.S. Government bans the sale of lead based paints.
1980:
The Superfund, containing $1.6 billion, is formed to be used by
the EPA in cleaning up pollution sites.
1981:
Microsoft develops MS-DOS for the IBM PC.
1981:
Gerd Binnig & Heinrich Rohrer develop the Scanning Tunneling Microscope
(STM) which is capable of resolving individual atoms on a surface.
1981:
NASA's "Columbia" Space Shuttle becomes the world's first
reusable space craft.
1983:
Carl Sagan, and a group of scientists, publishes an alarming report
concerning the long term climatic impacts of nuclear war.
1984:
AT&T is broken into "Baby Bells" by the U.S.
government.
1984:
Apple introduces the Macintosh personal computer.
1984:
An accidental toxic gas release by Union Carbide kills over 2000
in Bhopal, India.
1985:
Richard E. Smalley and Harold W. Kroto discover "Buckyballs",
a soccer ball like molecule made of 60 carbon atoms.
1985:
Low petroleum prices lead to the cancellation of the U.S. Government
sponsored "Synfuels" project, designed to develop alternative
energy sources based on coal or oil shales.
1986:
Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor #4 explodes, releasing large amounts of
radiation near Kiev, USSR.
1986:
NASA's Space Shuttle, Challenger, explodes shortly after
take off.
1986:
K. Alex Muller and George J. Bednorz discover a superconductor that
operates at 30 degrees Kelvin. This sets of an explosion in "high"
temperature superconductors.
1987:
Japan's "Nipon Zeon" company develops a plastic with "memory".
At low temperatures it can be bent and twisted, however when
heated above 37 degrees Celsius it returns to its initial shape.
1988:
A Scanning Tunneling Microscope produces the first picture of a
Benzene Ring.
1988:
McDonald's fast food chain stops using the "clamshell"
to package its hamburgers because of fears over the CFC's used in
manufacturing Polystyrene.
1989:
An Exxon Oil Tanker, the Valdez, runs aground
in of the coast of Alaska.
1989:
The Human Geonome Project, designed to map all the genes in a human
being, is launched.
1990:
Congress passes the "Pollution Prevention Act" which "encourages"
companies to reduce pollution.
1991:
The Soviet Union formally dissolves.
1991:
Washington D.C. has a victory parade, celebrating the decisive U.S.
success versus Iraq in the Gulf War.
1992:
The Australian Government begins a three year plan to introduce
plastic $5, $10, $20, $50, & $100 bills.
1993:
New York's "World Trade Center" is bombed by terrorists.
The explosive was created by a 26-year-old chemical engineer educated
at Rutgers University.
1993:
The high price of replacing a corroding heat exchanger causes the
Portland General Electric Company to retire, rather than repair,
its Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier Oregon.
1993:
Procter & Gamble adds the cellulase enzyme to "Cheer".
This enzyme breaks down cellulose (plant fiber) and it is hoped
that it will promote digestion of damaged cotton fibers, leaving
undamaged ones intact.
1995:
The Shinri Kyo cult uses Sarin nerve gas in the deadly Tokyo
subway attack.
1995:
A bomb made from ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel
oil destroys the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK.
Table
of Contents 
A
Century of ContributionsEngineering
& Scientific WagesPetroleum:
Distillation
Bibliography"The end already...go back to the top."
We always welcome COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS, OR REACTIONS.
