“The name is a Dutch word meaning”
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Leo Baekeland
Leo Hendrik Baekeland was a Belgian chemist. Educated in Belgium and Germany, he spent most of his career in the United States. He is best known for the inventions of Velox photographic paper in 1893, and Bakelite in 1907. He has been called "The Father of the Plastics Industry" for his invention of Bakelite, an inexpensive, non-flammable and versatile plastic, which marked the beginning of the mo…
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science · Belgian chemist (1863–1944); inventor of Bakelite · chemist · engineer · photographer · inventor · university teacher · businessperson · entrepreneur · also Leo Baekeland, Leo Henricus Arthur Baekeland, Leo Hendrick Baekeland, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, L. H. Baekeland, Baekeland
Born 14 November 1863 · Died 23 February 1944 · Q243442
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2026· 1 entry
1978· 1 entry
Awarded National Inventors Hall of Fame (1978).
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1974· 1 entry
Was posthumously inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame and in 1978 he was likewise inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio
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1944· 1 entry
Died 1944-02-23.
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1940· 1 entry
Won Franklin Medal (1940).
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1935· 1 entry
And the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1936
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1922· 1 entry
After patent litigation favorable to Baekeland, the General Bakelite Co
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1917· 1 entry
Baekeland became a professor by special appointment at Columbia University
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1916· 1 entry
Won Perkin Medal (1916).
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1913· 1 entry
Awarded Willard Gibbs Award (1913).
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1910· 1 entry
Won William H. Nichols Medal (1910).
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1900· 1 entry
For a "refresher in electrochemistry" at the Technical Institute at Charlottenburg
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1899· 1 entry
Jacobi, Baekeland, and Albert Hahn, a further associate, sold Nepera to George Eastman of the Eastman Kodak Co
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1891· 2 entries
Set up in business for himself working as a consulting chemist
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But as Baekeland noted "could not crystallize this mess, nor purify it to constant composition, nor in fact do anything with it once produced"
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1889· 1 entry
Baekeland and his wife Céline took advantage of a travel scholarship to visit universities in England and the United States
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1882· 1 entry
Studied at Ghent University (1882).
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1872· 1 entry
Particularly pyrogallol and benzaldehyde
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1868· 1 entry
Baekeland married Céline Swarts (1868–1944) on August 8, 1889, and they had two children.
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1863· 2 entries
Born 1863-11-14.
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The son of a cobbler, Charles Baekeland, and a house maid, Rosalia Merchie
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