What is 'the five great chemical inventions' that created a modern society?

by JD Hancock

Compared to engineering inventions such as cars, airplanes, mobile phones and television, chemical inventions tend to be overlooked for their importance, as inventive items are not directly circulated in the world. The Royal Chemistry Society announces such "five important scientific inventions that have created modern society".

Five chemistry inventions that enabled the modern world
https://theconversation.com/five-chemistry-inventions-that-enabled-the-modern-world-42452

◆ 1: penicillin <br> the world's first antibiotic penicillin is, of the United Kingdom in 1928 Alexander Fleming was discovered by Dr. Penicillin used to treat various diseases such as pneumonia and pharyngitis was discovered by Mr. Fleming's coincidence that Mold breeding in Petri dish prevented the growth of nearby bacteria.

Fleming Dr. Penicillium although in itself be discovered that contain penicillin broth, failure to extract penicillin from Penicillium. Ten years after Dr. Fleming abandoned the extraction of penicillin, in 1939, a research team of Australian pharmacologist Dr. Howard Florey succeeded in extracting penicillin. At that time, due to the outbreak of World War II, the laboratory equipment was insufficient, Mr. Florie said that he made an experimental device by patting things such as bathtub and milk can, and performed penicillin extraction experiment.

by Rajitha Ranasinghe

◆ 2: Harbor / Bosch method <br> Nitrogen, which is the most common gas in the atmosphere , plays a major role in the growth of organisms, but since nitrogen molecules are very stable molecules, Because it is difficult to react, plants and animals could not extract and use nitrogen from the atmosphere.

In 1910, Dr. Fritz Harbor and Dr. Carl Bosch invented the Harbor-Bosch method which reacts atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia. As a result, nitrogen fertilizer using nitrogen in the atmosphere can be used for agriculture. Currently, 80% of the nitrogen in our body is produced by the Harbor · Bosch method, and the probability of the Harbor · Bosch method greatly contributed to the population explosion from the first half of the 20th century to the 21st century.

by ILO in Asia and the Pacific

◆ 3: Polyethylene
Polyethylene is a raw material for many products that we are familiar with from water pipes to food packaging and helmets, and the production volume of products made from polyethylene is as much as 80 million tons annually. The first discovery of polyethylene was by German chemist Hans Von Phehmann , but Mr. Phehmann was originally studying another substance that has nothing to do with polyethylene at all. In 1898, Mr. Phehman discovered that waxy substances were sticking to the bottom of the pipe used in the experiment, and named the substance composed of a very long molecular chain as polyethylene.

In 1933 when more than 30 years passed since Mr. Phehmann's discovery, while a chemist at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), a British chemical company, is conducting experiments on high pressure reactions, the same waxy substance as Pheiman I realized that it was coincidentally made. The chemist noticed that oxygen was leaking out of the laboratory instruments, and two years later ICI started the industrial production of polyethylene using oxygen.

by Feggy Art

◆ 4: Oral contraceptives and hormonal agents
In the 1930's, doctors were aware of the possibility of hormone therapy that can be used for menstrual disorders and contraception, and were looking for ways to synthesize hormones in an inexpensive way. Dr. Russell · Marker of Pennsylvania State University successfully synthesized progesterone which is a type of steroid hormone inexpensively and massively. Mr. Marker developed a method to synthesize progesterone with high probability from the root of yam potato growing in Mexico and is also called "origin of oral contraceptive drug " which is based on progesterone as the main ingredient.

by Surija / "Sray"

◆ 5: Liquid crystal display
The history of liquid crystal display which is also used for the screen of PC and smartphone dates back to the 1960s. In the late 1960s, the British Department of Defense attempted to switch the display mounted on military vehicles from an expensive and bulky cathode ray tube to a flat screen. Although the theory of the liquid crystal display itself was developed from that time, it was said that operating only at high temperature became a major obstacle.

The British Department of Defense, who was searching for a way to make the liquid crystal display function at room temperature, asked Dr. George Gray of Hull University in 1970 for research and Gray developed a stable liquid crystal material (5 CB ). 5 CB is used for 90% of liquid crystal display produced in the late 1970's and 1980's, and liquid crystal display is now used for inexpensive products such as calculators and clocks.

by Student Reporter