Interesting Facts

• Polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) was first obtained in 1941 by Winfield and Dickson, chemists from England. People started using this polymeric substance and other materials based on it for the purpose of packing only in early sixties. .
  PET was used for manufacturing sack cloth and soft containers, stretch and self-adhesive tapes, non-oriented and oriented films, and then it was used to produce materials for hot shaping. In late 70-s the way of making preforms from PET and blowing bottles with their help was discovered. Till early 90-s such bottles were imported to USSR. And it was only middle 90-s that commercial production of such bottles began.
• Polyester was invented in USA in 1951. It was advertised as a miracle fibre. One could wear clothes made of polyester for 68 days without washing or ironing and yet they would look quite decent, it said in the ads.
• If you replace 25% of metal parts in a plane with synthetic ones its weight will reduce by 30% and its strength characteristics will remain the same.Thus there are savings in weight, fuel and fight-strip repairs. In 80-s а plane made of plastic was designed in USA, it managed to flight round the Earth without landing.
• In 70-s industrialized countries experienced the revolution of materials: polymers began squeezing metal out of production sector.
  The point is that some polymers outperform metals in strength in terms of unit mass, besides products made of polymers require less energy and leave fewer industrial wastes during the manufacturing process than metals. Polymers can be used to make light and at the same time reliable and strong constructions, such as pipelines (design-to-life cycle of a polymeric pipe compared to a metal one is thrice as long), fuselages and rocket bodies.
• Among manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci there was discovered a recipe for preparing artificial materials described on several pages in drawings and their annotations.
  Material reconstructed as per these instructions turned out to be much alike bakelite cement, a plastic material of the turn of XX century. All these facts evidence that Florentine genius of the Renaissance was 400 years ahead of his time and created the first artificial plastic before Alexander Parkes invented the organic material derived from cellulose in 1856 and Leo Hendrik invented bakelite cement in 1909.
• Polyethers (polyesters) are not quite new materials. In fact Amber Room and a plastic bottle are identical in composition!
  Natural polyethers have been used by people for a very long time. Among them are films and varnishes originating as an after-effect of linseed, wood and other agricultural oils dry out. Furthermore, polyethers can be found in human organism (as in most living organisms, however): polyether molecules of phosphoric acid are part of DNA responsible for hereditary information transfer and protein synthesis.
• The first polyester was invented in 1835 but those days it was ignored by scientists.
  As a result of his experiments with vinyl chloride chemist Regnault managed to synthesize polyvinyl chloride, the fact he himself was unaware of. Manny years after reconstructing his experiments scientists found out that tarry residues ignored by Regnault were polyvinyl chloride contaminated with decomposition products.
• Krepp tape is enough to coil the Earth along the Equator!
  The quantity of tape manufactured by OAO KAZ automated line during its first year of operation is enough to coil the Earth along the Equator 2.5 times!!!
• Helpful Information
• Articles about tapes in specialized publications