Wednesday 10 September 2014

Despite invention of vinyl & 116 patents, he was inducted to Hall of fame at age of 97!!!


Waldo Lonsbury Semon (September 10, 1898 – May 26, 1999) was a renowned American inventor born in Demopolis, Alabama. He is credited with inventing methods for making polyvinyl chloride useful. He was born on September 10, 1898. Semon put his name into the history books for inventing vinyl, the world's second most used plastic. He found the formula for vinyl by mixing a few synthetic polymers, and the result was a substance that was elastic, but wasn't adhesive. 


Semon worked on methods of improving rubber, and eventually developed a synthetic substitute. On December 11, 1935, he created Koreosol from salt, coke and limestone, a polymer that could be made in any consistency. Semon made more than 5,000 other synthetic rubber compounds, achieving success with Ameripol (AMERican POLymer) in 1940 for the B.F. Goodrich company. In all, Semon held 116 patents, and was inducted into the Invention Hall of Fame in 1995 at age 97. Read more...