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Alexander Parkes (29 December 1813 – 29 June 1890) was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic. ==Biography== The son of a brass lock manufacturer, Parkes was apprenticed to Messenger and Sons, brass founders of Birmingham, before going to work for George and Henry Elkington, who patented the electroplating process.〔Anon, A Short Memoir of Alexander Parkes (1813-90), Chemist and Inventor, Printed for Private Circulation, n.d. about 1890; John Naish Goldsmith, Alexander Parkes, Parkesine, Xylonite and Celluloid, 1934; M. Kaufman, The First Century of Plastics, 1963.〕 Parkes was put in charge of the casting department, and his attention soon began to focus on electroplating. Parkes took out his first patent (No. 8905) in 1841 on a process for electroplating delicate works of art. His improved method for electroplating fine and fragile objects, such as flowers, was granted a patent in 1843. The patent involved electroplating an object previously dipped in a solution of phosphorus contained in bisulfide of carbon, and then in nitrate of silver. A spider’s web, silver-plated according to this method, was presented to Prince Albert when he visited the Elkington works in 1844. In total, Parkes held at least 66 patents on processes and products mostly related to electroplating and plastic development. *In 1846 he patented the cold cure process for vulcanizing rubber, called by Thomas Hancock "one of the most valuable and extraordinary discoveries of the age".〔M.Kaufman, Op. Cit., p. 17〕 *He pioneered the addition of small quantities of phosphorus to metals and alloys, and developed phosphor-bronze (patent 12325 of 1848, taken out jointly with his brother Henry Parkes).〔Obituary in Iron, pp. 73-4, 25 July 1890.〕 *In 1850 he developed and patented the Parkes process for economically desilvering lead, also patenting refinements to the process in 1851 and 1852. *In 1856, he patented Parkesine - the first thermoplastic - a celluloid based on nitrocellulose treated with a variety of solvents. This material, exhibited at the 1862 London International Exhibition, anticipated many of the modern aesthetic and utility uses of plastics. *In 1866 he set up The Parkesine Company at Hackney Wick, London, for bulk low-cost production. It was not, however, a commercial success as Parkesine was expensive to produce, prone to cracking and highly flammable. The business closed in 1868. *Parkes' material was developed later in improved form as Xylonite by his associate Daniel Spill, who brought a patent infringement lawsuit — ultimately unsuccessful — against John Wesley Hyatt, developer of celluloid in the US In 1870, however, the judge ruled that it was in fact Parkes who was the true inventor due to his original experiments. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alexander Parkes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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