Page - 3 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

2.1 ABriefOverviewofPlasticDevelopment The creation of new synthetic chemicals combinedwith the engineering capabili- ties of mass production has made plastics one of the most popular materials in modern times. Today’smajor usage of plasticmaterials can be traced back to the 1800swith thedevelopmentof rubber technology.Oneof thekeybreakthroughs in this areawas thediscoveryofvulcanisationofnatural rubberbyCharlesGoodyear [30]. Throughout the 1800s a number of attemptsweremade to develop synthetic polymers includingpolystyrene (PS)andpolyvinylchloride (PVC),butat this time thesematerialswereeither toobrittle tobecommerciallyviableorwouldnotkeep their shape. The first synthetic polymer to entermass productionwas Bakelite, a phenol-formaldehyde resin, developed by the Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland in 1909 [31]. Later, around the 1930s the modern forms of PVC, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyurethane (PUR), and amore processable PSwere devel- oped [32]. The early 1950s saw the development of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP; Table 1). In the 1960s, advances in thematerial sciences led to the development of plastic materials produced other from natural resources [34], such as thebacterial fermentationof sugars and lipids, and include Table 1 Abrief profile of plastic development basedonLambert [33] Year Polymer type Inventor/notes 1839 Natural rubber latex CharlesGoodyear 1839 Polystyrene DiscoveredbyEduardSimon 1862 Parkesine AlexanderParkes 1865 Cellulose acetate Paul Schützenberger 1869 Celluloid JohnWesleyHyatt 1872 Polyvinyl chloride First createdbyEugenBaumann 1894 Viscose rayon CharlesFrederickCross 1909 Bakelite LeoHendrikBaekeland 1926 PlasticisedPVC Walter Semon 1933 Polyvinylidene chloride RalphWiley 1935 Low-density polyethylene ReginaldGibson andEricFawcett 1936 Acrylic or polymethylmethacrylate 1937 Polyurethane OttoBayer and co-workers 1938 Polystyrene As a commercially viable polymer 1938 Polyethylene terephthalate JohnWhinfield and JamesDickson 1942 Unsaturatedpolyester JohnWhinfield and JamesDickson 1951 High-density polyethylene PaulHoganandRobertBanks 1951 Polypropylene PaulHoganandRobertBanks 1953 Polycarbonate HermannSchnell 1954 Styrofoam RayMcIntire 1960 Polylactic acid PatrickGruber is creditedwith inventing a commercially viable process 1978 Linear low-density polyethylene DuPont MicroplasticsAreContaminants ofEmergingConcern inFreshwater. . . 3