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Ralph
Wiley

 

discovered polyvinylidene chloride

Ralph Wiley was a college student who worked in a laboratory at Dow Chemicals. In 1933 he came across a deposit which was very difficult to remove from laboratory glassware. He called it 'Eonite' - after the name of an indestructible material in the comic strip, Little Orphan Annie.

It was introduced by Dow Chemicals under the tradename 'Saran' and after its initial use as an anti-corrosion coating it became famous as 'Cling Film' when introduced as a food wrap in 1953.