Vinyl chloride or Polyvinyl chloride (synthetic polymer)

Polyvinyl chloride or PVC was first created by the German chemist Eugen Baumann in
1872. Eugen Baumann never applied for a patent. Polyvinyl chloride or PVC was never
patented until 1913 when German, Friedrich Klatte invented a new method of the
polymerization of vinyl chloride using sunlight. Friedrich Klatte became the first inventor
to receive a patent for PVC. However, no really useful purpose for PVC was found until
Waldo Semon came along and made PVC a better product. In 1926, Waldo Lonsbury
Semon was working for the B.F. Goodrich Company in the United States as a researcher,
when he invented plasticized polyvinyl chloride.
The first products from vinyl that Walter Semon produced were golf balls and shoe
heels. Today, hundreds of products are made from vinyl, including: shower curtains,
raincoats, wires, appliances, floor tiles, paints and surface coatings. It is the third-most
widely produced plastic, after polyethylene and polypropylene.
Chemical Names: Vinyl Chloride, Chloroethylene, Chloroethene
Common Name: Vinyl Chloride
Chemical Structure:

Properties:
Property
Color
State

Chemical Formula
Molecular Weight
Density
Tensile Strength
Elongation
Glass Transition Temperature (Tg)
Melting Point (Tm)
Flash Point

Colorless or Water White

Gas
at
ordinary
temperature
and
pressures. Liquid under pressure in
cylinders or pressure vessels at room
temperature.
C2H3Cl
62.5 g/mol
911 kg/m3
52 MPa at 20 C
400%
80 C
-153.8 C
- 78 C (open-cup)

Reference: Chemical Safety Data Sheet from the Manufacturing Chemists Association,
Inc., N.W., Washington, D.C.