Kevlar inventor dies
Stephanie Kwolek, a
DuPont chemist who in 1965 invented Kevlar, the stronger-than-steel body armor
that has saved thousands of lives of military and police force members, died
Wednesday at 90.
Kwolek made the
breakthrough while working on specialty fibers at a DuPont laboratory in
Wilmington, Delaware. She is the only woman to be awarded DuPon’s Lavoisier
Medal for outstanding technical achievement.
Kwolek was born on July 31,
1923, in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, graduated from Carnegie Institution of
Technology with a chemistry degree and was hired by Dupont a year after the end
of World War II.
Kwolek found a solvent that
was able to dissolve long-chain polymers into a solution that was much thinner
and more watery than other polymer solutions. The fibers are five times
stronger by weight than steel. DuPont had to get new equipment to test the
tensile strength.
More than 3,100 police
officers are members of a "Survivors Club" formed by DuPont and the
International Association of Chiefs of Police to promote the wearing of body
armor
Kevlar today is used in airplanes,
armored military vehicles, cellphones, sailboats, spacesuits, baseball bats,
notebook computers and underground mining equipment.
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