Thiourea
formaldehyde
It is strange how a change in
fashion can cause a change in fortune. In the
1920's, the fashion for weighted silk waned and
as a consequence the demand for thiourea fell
sharply. To avoid financial difficulties, the
British Cyanides Co. needed an outlet for their
thiourea and Charles
Rossiter conceived the idea of reacting
thiourea with formaldehyde to produce a resin.
Samples of this water-white syrup were shown at
the Wembley Exhibition of 1925 together with
discs moulded with the resin compounded with
slate-dust, chalk, sawdust or other fillers. The
samples carried the British Cyanides trademark, a
beetle, and moulding powders became known as
"Beetle". The breakthrough came at
Christmas 1926 when tableware moulded by Brookes
& Adams, Thomas de la Rue and Streetly
Manufacturing were displayed in Harrods. British
Cyanides, who had organised the display,
subsequently formed a subsidiary company, Beatl
Sales Ltd. to handle the sale of tableware and
picnicware from these and other moulding concerns.
Similar moulding materials were introduced in
Austria as Pollopas, in Germany as Resopal,
and Cibanoid in Switzerland. Although
Ellis in USA was working along similar lines, it
was not successful commercially until after the
collaboration with British Cyanides of a firm
later absorbed into American Cyanamid Company.
Improvements to the manufacturing process enabled
moulding compounds based entirely on urea
formaldehyde to be produced - these had better
water resistance and better odour and by the
early 1930s had replaced the thiourea/urea
materials previously used.
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