'Modernizing industrial organic chemistry. Great Britain between two world wars' in A S Travis et al (eds), Determinants in the Evolution of the European Chemical Industry, 1900-1939

Notes:

'Partly through the eyes of contemporaries' explores 'the circumstances of some of the advances, especially of those novel organic products, such as plastics, resins and adhesives, that were to become essential strategic chemicals during World War II, and everyday products after 1945'. Sections include: 'Chemical industry in 1939 - the raw material question'; 'Phenol - from explosives to plastics'; 'Phenol - formaldehyde resins - Bakelite'; 'Amino plastics - urea-, thiourea- and melamine-formalehyde products'; 'Adhesives and Aero Research Ltd'; 'A new corporation' [ICI]; 'Synthetic fibres - Celanese, Ardil and Nylon'; 'Phthalocyanine dyes - serendipity at ICI and academic research'; PVC and Perspex; Polyethylene (Polythene); Sulphonamides'; 'Solvents - Distillers and ICI'; ICI coal to oil process'; 'Coal to oil at low temperature carbonization'