ABSTRACT
Waldo L. Semon of B.F. Goodrich is credited with the invention of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in 1926. He made the use of PVC viable by plasticizing it; prior to this date, the material known as PVC was regarded as “worthless” due to its extreme brittleness. PVC had been developed earlier in 1912 by the German chemist Fritz Klatte who unknowingly made the first PVC. Klatte was attempting to create uses for large quantities of acetylene-gas fuel lamps just before the new technology of electric lights made them obsolete. Klatte’s PVC was shelved as he did not know what to do with it, and his original patent expired in 1925. Independently, in 1926, chemist Waldo Semon, at the American company B.F. Goodrich, invented PVC [1].
