Major innovations in materials technology

BC

• 28,000 BC – People wear beads, bracelets, and pendants

• 14,500 BC – First pottery, made by the Jōmon people of Japan.

• 6th millennium BC – Copper metallurgy is invented and copper is used for ornamentation (see Pločnik article)

• 2nd millennium BC – Bronze is used for weapons and armor

• 16th century BC – The Hittites develop crude iron metallurgy

• 13th century BC – Invention of steel when iron and charcoal are combined properly

• 10th century BC – Glass production begins in ancient Near East

• 1st millennium BC – Pewter beginning to be used in China and Egypt

• 1000 BC – The Phoenicians introduce dyes made from the purple murex.

• 3rd century BC – Wootz steel, the first crucible steel, is invented in ancient India

• 50s BC – Glassblowing techniques flourish in Phoenicia

• 20s BC – Roman architect Vitruvius describes low-water-content method for mixing concrete

1st millennium

• 3rd century – Cast iron widely used in Han dynasty China

• 300 – Greek alchemist Zomius, summarizing the work of Egyptian alchemists, describes arsenic and lead acetate

• 4th century – Iron pillar of Delhi is the oldest surviving example of corrosion-resistant steel

• 8th century – Porcelain is invented in Tang dynasty China

• 8th century – Tin-glazing of ceramics invented by Muslim chemists and potters in Basra, Iraq

• 9th century – Stonepaste ceramics invented in Iraq

• 900 – First systematic classification of chemical substances appears in the works attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Latin: Geber) and in those of the Persian alchemist and physician Abū Bakr al-Rāzī ( 865–925, Latin: Rhazes)

• 900 – Synthesis of ammonium chloride from organic substances described in the works attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Latin: Geber)

• 900 – Abū Bakr al-Rāzī describes the preparation of plaster of Paris and metallic antimony

• 9th century – Lustreware appears in Mesopotamia

2nd millennium

• 1000 – Gunpowder is developed in China

• 1340 – In Liège, Belgium, the first blast furnaces for the production of iron are developed

• 1448 – Johann Gutenberg develops type metal alloy

• 1450s – Cristallo, a clear soda-based glass, is invented by Angelo Barovier

• 1540 – Vannoccio Biringuccio publishes first systematic book on metallurgy

• 1556 – Georg Agricola's influential book on metallurgy

• 1590 – Glass lenseses are developed in the Netherlands and used for the first time in microscopes and telescopes

• 1664 – In the pipes supplying water to the gardens at Versailles, cast iron is used

18th century

• 1717 – Abraham Darby makes iron with coke, a derivative of coal

• 1738 – Metallic zinc processed by distillation from calamine and charcoal patented by William Champion

• 1740 – Crucible steel technique developed by Benjamin Huntsman

1774 –

• Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen

• Johann Gottlieb Gahn discovers manganese

• Karl Wilhelm Scheele discovers chlorine

• 1779 – Hydraulic cement (stucco) patented by Bryan Higgins for use as an exterior plaster

• 1799 – Acid battery made from copper/zinc by Alessandro Volta

19th century

• 1821 – Thermocouple invented by Thomas Johann Seebeck

• 1824 – Portland cement patent issued to Joseph Aspdin

• 1825 – Metallic aluminum produced by Hans Christian Ørsted

• 1839 – Vulcanized rubber invented by Charles Goodyear

• 1839 – Silver-based photographic processes invented by Louis Daguerre and William Fox Talbot

• 1855 – Bessemer process for mass production of steel patented by Henry Bessemer

• 1861 – Color photography demonstrated by James Clerk Maxwell

• 1883 – First solar cells using selenium waffles made by Charles Fritts

• 1893 – Thermite Welding developed and soon used to weld rails

20th century

• 1902 – Synthetic rubies created by the Verneuil process developed by Auguste Verneuil

• 1908 – Cellophane invented by Jacques E. Brandenberger

• 1909 – Bakelite hard thermosetting plastic presented by Leo Baekeland

• 1911 – Superconductivity discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

• 1912 – Stainless steel invented by Harry Brearley

• 1916 – Method for growing single crystals of metals invented by Jan Czochralski

• 1919 – The merchant ship Fullagar has the first all welded hull.

• 1924 – Pyrex invented by scientists at Corning Incorporated, a glass with a very low coefficient of thermal expansion

• 1931 – synthetic rubber called neoprene developed by Julius Nieuwland (see also: E.K. Bolton, Wallace Carothers)

• 1931 – Nylon developed by Wallace Carothers

• 1935 – Langmuir–Blodgett film coating of glass was developed by Katharine Burr Blodgett, creating "invisible glass" which is >99% transmissive

• 1938 – The process for making poly-tetrafluoroethylene, better known as Teflon discovered by Roy Plunkett

• 1939 – Dislocations in metals confirmed by Robert W. Cahn

• 1947 – First germanium point-contact transistor invented

• 1947 – First commercial application of a piezoelectric ceramic: barium titanate used as a phonograph pickup

• 1951 – Individual atoms seen for the first time using the field ion microscope

• 1953 – Metallic catalysts which greatly improve the strength of polyethylene polymers discovered by Karl Ziegler

• 1954 – Silicon solar cells with 6% efficiency made at Bell Laboratories

• 1954 – Argon oxygen decarburization (AOD) refining invented by scientists at the Union Carbide Corporation

• 1959 – Float glass process patented by the Pilkington Brothers

• 1962 – SQUID superconducting quantum interference device invented

• 1966 – Stephanie Kwolek invented a fibre that would later become known as Kevlar

• 1968 – Liquid crystal display developed by RCA

• 1970 – Silica optical fibers grown by Corning Incorporated

• 1980 – Duplex stainless steels developed which resist oxidation in chlorides

• 1984 – Fold-forming system developed by Charles Lewton-Brain to produce complex three dimensional forms rapidly from sheet metal

• 1985 – The first fullerene molecule discovered by scientists at Rice University (see also: Timeline of carbon nanotubes)

• 1986 – The first high temperature superconductor is discovered by Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Müller

See also

• Timeline of scientific discoveries

• Timeline of historic inventions

• List of inventions named after people

• Materials science

• Roman metallurgy

References