History of chemical technology
80 inventions by year: what each evolved from and what it led to.
| Year | Invention | What it is | Evolved from | Led to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 200000 BC | Adhesive | A substance that joins surfaces. | ||
| 40000 BC | Paint | A pigment in a binder. | ||
| 7000 BC | Lime | The product of burning limestone; the basis of ancient mortars. | ||
| 7000 BC | Ethanol | Alcohol produced by fermentation; a fuel and a solvent. | ||
| 7000 BC | Tanning | Treating hides with tanning agents. | ||
| 4000 BC | Dye | A substance for colouring fabrics. | ||
| 4000 BC | Indigo | A blue dye; synthesized by Baeyer in 1880. | Synthetic dye | |
| 4000 BC | Cosmetics | Products for care and make-up. | ||
| 2800 BC | Soap | Salts of fatty acids used for cleaning. | Synthetic detergent | |
| 800 | Fireworks | Pyrotechnics based on gunpowder. | Rocket | |
| 800 | Sulfuric acid | The most important product of the chemical industry. | ||
| 800 | Distillation Zosimos of Panopolis | Separating liquids by their boiling points. | ||
| 800 | Alembic | An apparatus for distillation (Jabir). | ||
| 850 | Gunpowder Berthold Schwarz | A mixture of saltpetre, sulfur and charcoal. | Dynamite, Smokeless powder | |
| 1300 | Litmus | An acidity indicator. | pH meter | |
| 1370 | Perfume | A solution of aromatic substances in alcohol. | ||
| 1540 | Diethyl ether | The first general anaesthetic. | ||
| 1727 | Silver halide | A light-sensitive silver compound. | ||
| 1727 | Photochemical reaction | A chemical change caused by light. | ||
| 1766 | Hydrogen Henry Cavendish, Mikhail Lomonosov | A light gas; it filled airships and fuels rockets. | ||
| 1771 | Liebig condenser | A water-cooled tube for condensing vapour. | ||
| 1772 | Nitrogen Daniel Rutherford | The main gas of the atmosphere. | ||
| 1774 | Oxygen Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Joseph Priestley | The gas that supports combustion (Priestley, Scheele). | ||
| 1774 | Ammonia Joseph Priestley | The basis of nitrogen fertilizers and a refrigerant. | ||
| 1774 | Chlorine Carl Wilhelm Scheele | A gas for disinfecting water and making PVC. | ||
| 1777 | Oxidation | A reaction with oxygen or a loss of electrons (Lavoisier). | ||
| 1789 | Bleach | Hypochlorite (eau de Javel, Berthollet). | ||
| 1791 | Soda ash | A raw material for glass and soap (the Leblanc and Solvay processes). | ||
| 1791 | Burette | A graduated tube for titration. | ||
| 1800 | Electrolysis | Decomposing a substance with an electric current (Nicholson, Carlisle). | Voltaic pile | |
| 1800 | Chemical plant | Industrial synthesis of substances. | ||
| 1801 | Sugar production | Making sugar from beet (Achard). | ||
| 1830 | Fractional distillation | Multi-stage distillation in a column. | ||
| 1831 | Chloroform | A 19th-century anaesthetic. | ||
| 1834 | Refrigerant | A low-boiling working fluid of a refrigerator. | ||
| 1835 | Catalysis Jöns Jacob Berzelius | Speeding up a chemical reaction with a catalyst. | ||
| 1836 | Acetylene | A flammable gas made from calcium carbide. | ||
| 1838 | Cellulose Anselme Payen | The polymer of plant fibres; the basis of paper. | ||
| 1846 | Kerosene | A middle fraction of crude oil — fuel for lamps and jet engines. | ||
| 1847 | Nitroglycerin Ascanio Sobrero | A powerful explosive (Sobrero); also a medicine. | ||
| 1855 | Dry cleaning | Cleaning with solvents instead of water (Jolly). | ||
| 1856 | Synthetic dye William Henry Perkin | Perkin’s aniline mauveine. | Indigo | Sulfonamides |
| 1859 | Crude oil | A natural mixture of hydrocarbons; industrial extraction since the 1850s. | ||
| 1859 | Oil refining | Separating and processing crude oil into fractions. | ||
| 1860 | Petrol | A light fraction of crude oil — fuel for combustion engines. | ||
| 1863 | TNT | Trinitrotoluene (Wilbrand). | ||
| 1867 | Dynamite Alfred Nobel | An explosive based on nitroglycerin (Nobel). | Gunpowder | |
| 1868 | Helium Pierre Janssen, Norman Lockyer | An inert light gas. | ||
| 1870 | Celluloid | An early nitrocellulose plastic; the basis of cinema film. | ||
| 1872 | Injection moulding | Shaping plastic by injecting it into a mould. | ||
| 1883 | Liquid nitrogen | Nitrogen at −196 °C (Wróblewski, Olszewski). | ||
| 1884 | Smokeless powder | Nitrocellulose powder (Vieille). | Gunpowder | |
| 1886 | Hall–Héroult process | Producing aluminium by electrolysis of molten alumina. | ||
| 1886 | Fluoride | An element that strengthens enamel. | ||
| 1891 | Oil cracking | Breaking down heavy hydrocarbons (Shukhov, Burton). | ||
| 1897 | Hydrogenation Paul Sabatier | Adding hydrogen over a nickel catalyst (Sabatier). | ||
| 1900 | Activated carbon | Porous carbon that absorbs impurities. | ||
| 1902 | Air separation | Producing oxygen and nitrogen by liquefaction (Linde). | ||
| 1903 | Chromatography | Separating mixtures (Tsvet). | ||
| 1904 | Fume hood | A laboratory extraction cabinet. | ||
| 1907 | Plastic | A synthetic mouldable material. | ||
| 1907 | Bakelite Leo Baekeland | The first fully synthetic plastic (Baekeland). | ||
| 1908 | Cellophane Jacques E. Brandenberger | A transparent film made of cellulose (Brandenberger). | ||
| 1909 | Haber–Bosch process Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch | Synthesizing ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen under pressure over a catalyst. | ||
| 1916 | Synthetic detergent | Cleaning agents based on surfactants. | Soap | |
| 1926 | Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) | A plastic for pipes, cables and records. | ||
| 1926 | Steam methane reforming | Producing hydrogen from natural gas. | ||
| 1930 | Neoprene | DuPont’s synthetic rubber. | ||
| 1931 | Synthetic rubber Wallace Carothers | Rubber made from butadiene (Lebedev, 1910; industrially in 1931). | ||
| 1933 | Polyethylene | The most widely used plastic (ICI). | ||
| 1934 | pH meter | An electronic acidity meter (Beckman). | Litmus | |
| 1938 | Teflon | Low-friction polytetrafluoroethylene (Plunkett). | ||
| 1941 | PET | Polyethylene terephthalate — bottles and fibre. | ||
| 1970 | Superabsorbent | A polymer that absorbs hundreds of times its weight in water. | ||
| Combustion | Rapid oxidation that releases heat and light. | |||
| Chemical reaction | The transformation of substances by rearranging bonds. | |||
| Carbon Antoine Lavoisier | The element of organic matter; graphite, diamond, coal. | |||
| Fermentation | The conversion of sugars by microorganisms. | |||
| Corrosion | The destruction of metals by oxidation. | |||
| Surfactant | A substance that lowers surface tension. |