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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