00:00:00 © BF-WATCH TV 2021

00:00:30 © BF-WATCH TV 2021

00:01:00 Chemistry, Alchemy, Magic.

00:01:15 Once they were interchangeable terms, with suggestions of black art thrown in.

00:01:20 But the modern laboratory of today's chemists, fantastic in appearance as it is, is far out in the very vanguard of progress.

00:01:27 The holy of holies, wherein science moves in mysterious ways her wonders to perform.

00:01:33 Here in one of du Pont's laboratories, we witness the realization of a dream, which for more than half a century was the vain dream of Europe's greatest scientists.

00:01:42 A chemically made rubber, not imitation rubber or synthetic rubber, but an utterly new substance, unknown to nature, possessing the desirable qualities of rubber and greater resistance to rubber's enemies.

00:01:55 It is neoprene, and it is made of coal, limestone, water and salt.

00:02:01 But suppose we observe how the process is continued on a scale of tons instead of ounces in the plant itself.

00:02:08 This dough-like mixture answers to the innocent name of polymerized chloroprene.

00:02:13 Not exactly what you'd suppose anybody would dream about for 50 years.

00:02:17 Yet this rubber in the making, to call it that, can supply us with our essential industrial needs, should rubber imports ever become dislocated.

00:02:26 This detached hunk is on its way to the floor below, where it will be washed between heavy rollers and flattened into sheets like commercial rubber.

00:02:35 The sheets are processed further by rubber companies into products having properties not obtainable in those made from the sap of a rubber tree.

00:02:43 Properties scientifically imposed to give neoprene products greater stability than rubber products, as much resilience, fully as much elasticity,

00:02:52 but vastly more resistance to gasoline, oils and grease, and more freedom from the disintegrating influence of sunlight.

00:03:02 These are rubber's most common and thus most dangerous foes.

00:03:07 Laboratory tests demonstrate the difference between rubber, the red-gloved finger, and neoprene by immersion in kerosene, one of rubber's worst foes.

00:03:17 The gauge portrays the swelling rubber as compared with neoprene's sturdy structure.

00:03:23 We shall see its resistance to abrasion, too, which the distended rubber no longer withstands after exposure to kerosene, but the neoprene does.

00:03:34 The proof of any footing is in the eating, so let's go to the kitchen, not to eat, but to observe neoprene in action.

00:03:41 Grease-resistant neoprene gloves.

00:03:49 A neoprene mask, indifferent to time and the wear and tear of use.

00:03:55 A neoprene dish scraper, as resilient as rubber and vastly more sturdy.

00:04:03 A soap tray which alkali doesn't affect and which will survive long usage.

00:04:08 Curtains derived from an entirely different chemical kingdom, cellulose.

00:04:16 Ingenious knives and gadgets, a DuPont contribution to kitchen convenience.

00:04:21 And finally, a wash rag, which isn't a rag, but a sponge, which isn't a sponge, which calls for a bit of explaining.

00:04:29 It takes nature a long time to raise porifera, sponges, to use.

00:04:34 DuPont chemists make them quicker and better out of wood and cotton.

00:04:39 This is cellulose, converted into viscous and processed to form a porous substance so like a marine sponge

00:04:46 that the only way your goldfish could tell the difference is by the square corner.

00:04:51 Pores may be made coarse or fine. Size and shape are not left to the winds of chance.

00:04:57 They will absorb 20 times their weight in water, and the cellulose sponge will not sink to the bottom of a pail to gather grip.

00:05:05 They are easily kept sweet and clean, and even boiling water will not harm them.

00:05:17 We call our little mystery play, Who Paid the Check?

00:05:20 Because that's the only thing about it that we still don't know.

00:05:26 We can see that she's thirsty. Her name is Alice, and her gown is new and blue.

00:05:31 We can also see that she's pretty lonesome with those big RSVP eyes, you know, invitational eyes.

00:05:40 The romance is in the soup. The waiter is in despair. Alice is indifferent.

00:05:46 It's quite all right, she says.

00:05:50 Next time, she says, for goodness' sake, don't serve the soup so hot.

00:06:00 She might have said something nice about Z-Labs.

00:06:05 For decades, chemists have experimented with textiles in an effort to render them water-resilient.

00:06:11 But no treatment was proof against the dry cleaner or the chemical.

00:06:16 But no treatment was proof against the dry cleaner or the laundry.

00:06:20 DuPont chemists then brought forth Z-Labs, durable, repellent.

00:06:25 The finish that protects despite many washings or dry cleanings.

00:06:29 This laboratory test shows a non-seated fabric absorbing water, which runs off the seated fabric like quick filter.

00:06:36 And now, you guessed it, the lady's rayon gown was seated with Z-Labs.

00:06:42 But this fabric wasn't, and the ink is there to stay.

00:06:47 If you must spill ink, do it like this, on Z-Labs seated fabric.

00:06:54 In hundreds of cases annually, blazing dresses take the toll of women's lives.

00:06:59 DuPont chemists contributed greatly to safety when they developed the fire retardant that prevents this fabric from flaring into flames.

00:07:08 These sheets, destined to become rayon, are purified cellulose, which is nothing but the fibrous stuff of plants.

00:07:16 In this instance, wood and cotton.

00:07:19 They've been shredded, as you can see, and after being transformed into a honey-like liquid called bisquits,

00:07:25 are forced through these spinnerets in minute filaments fine as spider silk.

00:07:31 Fair vigilantes keep watch for severed fibers as they flow in an endless glistening stream to the comb,

00:07:39 on which they will be packed and sent to the textual mill, one of which this is.

00:07:46 From these combs placed on pegs, the yarn is warped onto a giant spool, which takes 800 threads from as many humming feeders,

00:07:56 each comb paying off its tiny contribution until the load of rayon carried on a mammoth spool is 3,000 pounds of accumulated gossamer filament.

00:08:05 To the looms now with this rayon, looms with 190 shuffle oscillations per minute, the fastest perhaps in the world.

00:08:15 And from these printing machines flow many huge fabrics, drapery material, dress goods,

00:08:21 taking color from DuPont American-made dyes,

00:08:24 the creation of which is itself a thrilling chapter in the history of invention and industry in the United States.

00:08:32 And speaking of dyes, spools of yarn are here being dyed with bat colors.

00:08:37 The yarn will be under pressure by which the dye solution is forced through it until color becomes integral with thread,

00:08:44 and may be said to be as permanent as the thread itself.

00:08:48 DuPont pioneered in dye stuff when the Great War ended our dependence on Europe.

00:08:53 That dependence is over forever.

00:08:55 Of blue alone, 220 different standards are necessary, and the range of dyes comprises over 1,200 individual products.

00:09:03 Truly a colorful gathering.

00:09:05 A brilliant rainbow at the end of the long trail to American preeminence in the art of making utility beautiful and beauty useful.

00:09:14 Out of the most unlikely elements, the plant at Bell, West Virginia, is creating a new substance from the coal of nearby mines.

00:09:22 It is an imitation of nothing.

00:09:24 Indeed, Mother Nature never saw anything quite like it until DuPont chemists, after years of experimentation, laid it in her lab.

00:09:32 Nylon composed of coal, thus the substance of vapor, steam, air, and water.

00:09:38 This is not lava, it is coal.

00:09:40 But nobody except a chemical engineer could ever glimpse the shimmer of a stocking in it.

00:09:45 It is on its way to the gas generators where escaping blasts protest the impertinence of science,

00:09:51 which is actually breaking down the barrier between the animal and mineral world,

00:09:55 and forcing coal to yield this protein-like fiber-forming substance, molten nylon.

00:10:02 It is being inspected on the DuPont principle that eternal vigilance is also the price of progress.

00:10:09 Through such care and research, DuPont chemists years ago discovered these nylon salts,

00:10:15 which in processes beyond the camera's reach become fluid,

00:10:18 and are forged through spinnerets in filaments which are gathered together into a thread of nylon yarn.

00:10:24 These multiple filaments are then conveyed to the spool.

00:10:27 But note that the yarn is still hardly more substantial than a spider's web.

00:10:32 In a process which is called throwing, the multiple but still slender yarn is moved to other spools,

00:10:38 and twisted into manageable threads.

00:10:47 This is marketable nylon yarn, the wonder creation of modern science.

00:10:52 It is stronger and more elastic than any textile hitherto spun by nature or by man.

00:11:01 But it will not leave the DuPont factory until every spool has had expert inspection.

00:11:09 We next see the yarn on the knitting machines in the hosiery mill,

00:11:13 where stockings born of coal, air, and water begin to take form.

00:11:17 These are the leggers on which the yarn is knitted into stockings.

00:11:21 The combs on some of these machines can measure the fabric as fine as any textile ever produced,

00:11:26 but with resilience, elasticity, and strength amazingly disproportionate to the filmy finished product.

00:11:33 An operation between the machines transfers the work from one set of needles to another,

00:11:38 from legger to footer.

00:11:40 Although there's seldom much visual interest in the foot of a stocking,

00:11:43 it is still of great importance to the wearer.

00:11:46 This is one of the footers, a complicated piece of mechanism.

00:11:50 And now for the seam, which the machine always gets straight,

00:11:54 though alas, the wearer doesn't.

00:11:57 In the seam room, the hosiery is set to a form actually perfect and permanent.

00:12:03 The stocking will not depart from the shape imposed.

00:12:06 No baggy knees or deforming wrinkles during the life of a nylon stocking.

00:12:14 Miss Gloria Glamour thrills to the ultimate in hosiery,

00:12:17 a chemical miracle in which coal, air, and water are converted into a fabric as intangible as moonbeams

00:12:24 and finer than the fiber of a butterfly's cocoon.

00:12:28 Everything she has on is made of nylon, the fabric of the future derived from coal.

00:12:34 Do we hear someone say, hadn't you better put on a little more coal, my dear?

00:12:39 From underwear to slippers, her entire wardrobe is fabricated from the same fine yarn used in nylon hosiery.

00:12:46 Moss-proof and resistant to wear, yet pleasing to the touch,

00:12:49 even this airy blue gown may be washed in soap and water.

00:12:53 And wonder of wonders, it will dry out as smooth as no press.

00:12:58 Behold then the maid, chemically garbed,

00:13:01 even her jewel-like necklace from the same substance as her satin-like slippers.

00:13:05 Garments seen and unseen from head to toe, a synthetic symphony from DuPont's magic pile of coal.

00:13:16 The thickness of nylon filaments is a controllable factor.

00:13:19 These coarser ones fill special requirements of maximum toughness and elasticity.

00:13:24 Curiously, the elastic quality doesn't appear until the nylon has been stretched.

00:13:29 This is due to its peculiar molecular structure.

00:13:33 We next reach the sorting room, where the filaments have room for the guillotine,

00:13:37 which bloodless machine chops the bundles with neatness and dispatch.

00:13:42 And then the filaments are scrambled for the sake of uniformity.

00:13:46 Every bundle must be like every other one.

00:13:49 Whatever it is they're making, the bundles of bristles are next loaded like bullets into a machine gun,

00:13:55 and with even greater accuracy, they are shot into...

00:13:59 But did you guess it?

00:14:01 You're right.

00:14:02 Toothbrushes.

00:14:05 Uniformity, toughness, and several times the durability of nature's contribution of hog bristles,

00:14:11 and much more suitable, we think, to the uses of Milady's boudoir.

00:14:19 But not everything that DuPont creates is in the famine line.

00:14:23 There is, for instance, the fishing line.

00:14:26 Since it is water-resistant, it dries quickly.

00:14:29 And since it dries quickly, it does not rot.

00:14:32 It isn't exactly immortal, but it lasts many years.

00:14:35 It is so light that it floats.

00:14:37 Thus, a lighter line can be employed for heavier service.

00:14:41 It is free from fuzz as a hound's tooth, and being tinklish, it discourages profanity.

00:14:47 Note how lightly, easily it casts.

00:14:50 There are nylon lines and bleeders for fresh and salt water in level and taper forms.

00:14:56 The bleeders being as strong as the finest Spanish gut and superior in wear.

00:15:01 It is the fisherman's ideal equipment, leaving nothing to be desired except...

00:15:06 Yes, he's got it.

00:15:09 A fish.

00:15:11 This sportsman, like all others who have used them,

00:15:14 says nylon lines and bleeders show much greater wear resistance, weight for weight,

00:15:18 than any other he ever used.

00:15:21 A limit cast on a line that doesn't break except all records.

00:15:26 And here are tubes containing, in various stages of polymerization,

00:15:31 a new plastic called methylmethacrylate.

00:15:34 Lucite is easier on the tongue.

00:15:37 One of the most sensational of chemistry's sensational creations.

00:15:41 Of crystal clarity, it bends, and the man has to wear goggles to keep his eyes open.

00:15:47 Of crystal clarity, it bends, and the man has to wear goggles to keep the sawdust out of his eyes.

00:15:55 Transmitting light without lateral leakage, its uses in dentistry and surgery are obvious.

00:16:01 The bulb is at one end and the light at the other.

00:16:04 Light without heat.

00:16:06 The glow becomes visible where the surface is roughened and thus can be spotted exactly where desired.

00:16:12 The light carrying rod is luminous only where light is needed.

00:16:15 With a lamp in the handle, the light may be carried around the corner to shine only where it's wanted,

00:16:20 looking perhaps for what the patient hopes isn't there.

00:16:23 If lucite served only dentists and surgeons, its development would be amply justified.

00:16:29 But its possibilities are limitless.

00:16:31 In the decorative arts alone, at last, a foam you can see through.

00:16:35 Rather pleasant, isn't it?

00:16:37 And lucite, too.

00:16:39 Made like nylon of coal, air, and water.

00:16:42 Nothing else.

00:16:43 Virtually everything you see is from the coal heap,

00:16:46 plus air and water well-mixed with brains.

00:16:49 The brains of American scientists, who in the brief period between 1914 and the present

00:16:55 have brought America's scientific achievements from second place, sailing Europe,

00:16:59 to first place, leading the world.

00:17:02 A position it is not likely soon if ever to relinquish.

00:17:08 A lucite and nylon brush.

00:17:14 A lucite mirror.

00:17:16 But you have to supply your own reflection.

00:17:22 This lucite furniture is crystal clear, so it could be made in color.

00:17:27 Sunlight will not check or darken it.

00:17:29 The rayon rug is toned with DuPont dyes,

00:17:32 to develop which 400 highly trained technicians are constantly at work,

00:17:36 heading a force of several thousand employees.

00:17:39 Clearer than glass, but much lighter and of greater tensile strength.

00:17:43 Resistant to moisture, water repellent, and shape-holding,

00:17:47 ideal is rayon drapery.

00:17:52 Another of the many rayon types.

00:17:54 Satin that isn't satin, but something better.

00:17:57 Lucite again.

00:17:59 Smooth as porcelain, but practically unbreakable.

00:18:02 More durable than wood, half as heavy as glass,

00:18:05 and only equaled by quartz crystal for clearness.

00:18:08 Something new every minute.

00:18:10 Rayon gown.

00:18:12 Formerly a substitute for silk,

00:18:14 now filling a unique place all its own in the field of textiles.

00:18:18 The development of an idea born in the 17th century

00:18:21 of an artificial man-made fiber.

00:18:24 And now, after three centuries, finally realized by science.

00:18:28 A year's output of American rayon would provide every woman in the land

00:18:32 with seven gents.

00:18:35 Not dyed in the wool, but nylon, dyed by DuPont.

00:18:39 Try to think of that cold heat now.

00:18:42 The dream of centuries.

00:18:44 We're speaking of the man-made in the grime of cold heat.

00:18:48 Rayon production in 1911 was 320,000 pounds.

00:18:52 In 1937, it was 340 million pounds.

00:18:57 The achievement of DuPont chemists

00:18:59 working with nature's own forces and materials

00:19:02 to produce by design what nature has failed to produce

00:19:05 in all the chancy progress of millions of years of evolution.

00:19:09 Cumulatively enforcing the DuPont slogan

00:19:12 for its 55,000 employees,

00:19:15 better things for better living through chemistry.

00:19:19 © BF-WATCH TV 2021