How is Nylon Made?
The term nylon is used for a broad range of synthetic polymers that are manufactured in a chemical process. Wallace Carothers at DuPont created the first nylon on 28 February 1935, and it is still one of the most widely used synthetic fabrics. Nylon is created in a chemical plant using a controlled method of combining specific chemicals. Creating useful nylon is a two-step process: chemical combination to create the material itself and the manufacturing process required to make it useful. In order to create nylon, the manufacturer combines two sets of molecules. One set has an acid group on each end and the other set has amine group on each end. The result of this combination is a substance that is known as nylon 6, 6. The name is based on the number of carbon atoms in the middle between the two acid groups and the two amines. The other method of creating nylon is to combine the same molecules in a different structure. In this alternate method, the acidic molecules are all at one end o
Nylon was the first of the synthetic fibers made by man, and is considered one of the most important chemical discoveries because of its toughness, strength, elasticity, and resistance to oil and grease. In the late 1920s and the early 1930s, chemists at the DuPont Company first produced nylon by combining chemicals they extract
