Pieces in the puzzle of science

Nowadays a lot of people talk about biopolymers as an opposite concept to “normal” plastics. From my point of view some pieces are missing in the picture: “Normal” plastics started of as biopolymers in some cases. Because it is not new that people observe nature and try to draw conclusions.

What is rather unknown is that Polystyrene started as biopolymer quasi by accident. To tell this story, you have to start with in ancient times. The resin of the storax tree (called Styrax) has been used for all kind of purposes over the centuries, it was even part of the embalming of the Egyptian mummies. It was used for perfume, hair dye and medicine.

So, it is of no surprise that it was part of a decent collection of the pharmacists of the 19th century. One of these pharmacists was Eduard Simon from Berlin. He lived from 1789 to 1856 and was eager to learn about the substances he worked with. He observed and try to draw his conclusions from his tests, just like modern scientists do.

He distilled the Styrax and came up with a transparent liquid, which he called consequently “Styrol”. What he observed next was - over time - this liquid turned into a solid. So he knew that something changed. Since a lot of these changing processes are due to oxygen reactions, he assumed that in this case as well and called the solid substance “Styroloxid”.

But here he was wrong. Others later discovered that actually polymerization was the process. So Eduard didn’t draw the right conclusions, but this is not the thing that matters. What is important from my point of view is that he observed and tested. He pushed the frontier of knowledge a little bit further and even in his error he created something for others to think about. Not one person can find out everything, but the goal is to try to find a piece to the puzzle.

And by just doing that, Eduard got his spot in history. He found a piece to a Biopolymer, which was not the first and not the last in a long history of Biopolymers and observations.

The same is actually true for his pharmacy: It was founded in 1707 and survived until the middle of the 20th century with a lot of different pharmacist. There is a one picture available from 1890s, where one can get an impression of this rather formidable building:

So let’s be in this succession and look for the new things out there to improve out world and to enrich our knowledge.

Pictures are from Eitan F, Zinnmann & SBrools/Padleckas