Wallace Hume Carothers (27 April, 1896–29 April, 1937) made his mark in Organic Chemistry after completing Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois. He later joined Harvard as the instructor and was offered a fund research by the DUPont Fundamental research Laboratory. In 1934, Wallace Carothers and his team developed the first man-made organic fabric known as nylon. Under Dr. Elmer K. Bolton, at the laboratory, Carothers isolated chloroprene, which on polymerization gives a solid resembling rubber. This breakthrough was called ‘synthetic rubber’ and is now called Neoprene.
Later, Wallace Carothers worked as a part of a research team and produced a synthetic polymer with high molecular weight. He also gave the term ‘super polyester’. He also derived Carothers equation, which gives the degree of polymerization. He worked on the theory of step-growth polymerization. It was after this, that Carothers stopped research on polymers.
In 1936, he was elected member of the National Academy of Science.
