Benjamin Gross
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org
In October 2007 Eastman Chemical Company unveiled a new copolyester called Tritan. This new compound possessed the strength and flexibility of existing plastics but offered higher temperature and impact resistance. These qualities rendered it ideally suited for use in housewares, medical equipment, and infant-care products, and by the end of 2011 Eastman was producing 65 million pounds of the material every year. Although Tritan is poised to become one of the most prominent new plastics of the 21st century, its success was hardly self-evident. In this talk Gross will describe how members of Eastman’s scientific, legal, and marketing staff ensured that Tritan made a smooth transition into the global marketplace.
Benjamin Gross is a postdoctoral research fellow in CHF’s Center for Contemporary History and Policy. His dissertation, “Crystallizing Innovation: RCA and the Emergence of the LCD, 1951–1976,” explored the development of the first liquid-crystal display devices by scientists at the Radio Corporation of America. He previously served as the 2009–2010 Price Dissertation Fellow in Polymer History at CHF. He recently earned his Ph.D. in the history of science from Princeton University.