Materials for DuPont Cut Resistant Gloves: How Did Kevlar? Fibers Be Born?
DuPont? Kevlar? brand aramid fibers provide reliable mechanical and flame retardant protection in DuPont's mechanical protective gloves, firefighting clothing, and industrial clothing. Kevlar? is five times stronger than steel of the same quality! At the same time, it also has many excellent material properties such as wear resistance, flame retardant, chemical resistance and so on. In addition to personal protection in the industrial and emergency fields, its most well-known applications are bulletproof vests, helmets and vehicle armor, so it is also called "bulletproof fiber".
So, do you know how this amazing fiber was born?
On July 31, 1923, a girl named Stephanie Kwolek was born in Pittsburgh, USA, to a family of Polish immigrants - more than forty years later, she was the one who invented Kevlar? fiber.
As a child, Stephanie Kwolek never imagined that she would become a chemist. Her original dream was to be a fashion designer, but the mother knew very well that her daughter's personality was not suitable for the fashion industry. Influenced by her father, Stephanie Kwolek was also interested in science since she was a child, so she later applied for chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University.
But even after graduation, Stephanie Kwolek still does not aim to be in the chemical industry, but hopes to become a doctor. After joining DuPont, she plans to work for a period of time and then study medicine after saving enough tuition. But in the process, she gradually fell in love with this career.
In 1965, Ms. Stephanie Kwolek was in her 19th year at DuPont. She was a DuPont lab assistant at the time and was helping the team find a new, lightweight, strong fiber to use in tires to help cars save fuel. At the time, she had been working with polymer materials, but accidentally synthesized a unique, light-textured, milky solution in the process.
So she persuaded her colleagues to help her spin the solution into silk, making Kevlar? fibers. This fiber is very tough and stretches many times stronger than all previous fibers.
At that time, Stephanie Kwolek's mentor and laboratory director realized the significance and importance of this unexpected discovery - this young female assistant was opening a new field of polymer chemistry!
High-strength Kevlar? fibers were first used commercially in the early 1970s to replace some of the steel wires in racing tires and later to make bulletproof vests. In addition, Kevlar? is widely used in fiber optic cables, mining conveyor belts, urban roads, and numerous consumer products such as sporting goods, electronic equipment and accessories. It can be said that the figure is everywhere!
