Material	Inventor and Description
Parkesine -- was an organic material derived from cellulose that once heated could be molded but that retained its shape when cooled	first man-made plastic was unveiled by Alexander Parkes at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. This material -- which the public dubbed Parkesine -- was an organic material derived from cellulose that once heated could be molded but that retained its shape when cooled
Celluloid	John Wesley Hyatt, an American, finally came upon the solution in 1866 with celluloid. Hyatt, upon spilling a bottle of collodion in his workshop, discovered that the material congealed into a tough, flexible film. He then produced billiard balls using collodian as a substitute for ivory.
Bakelite	first completely synthetic man-made substance was discovered in 1907, when a New York chemist -- Leo Baekeland -- created a liquid resin which he named Bakelite
Rayon	1891 in Paris by Louis Marie Hilaire Bernigaut, the Count of Chardonnet. He was searching for a way to produce man-made silk. After studying silkworms, Chardonnet noticed that the worm would secrete a liquid from a narrow orifice that would harden upon exposure to air and turn into silk.
Cellophane	Dr. Jacques Edwin Brandenberger, a Swiss textile engineer, who came upon the idea for a clear, protective, packaging layer in 1900
Nylon	Carothers saw the possible value that a new tough plastic, such as Fiber 66 could possess. The fiber replaced animal hair in toothbrushes and silk stockings. The stockings were unveiled in 1939
PVC	Waldo Semon, a B.F. Goodrich organic chemist, was attempting to bind rubber to metal when he stumbled across PVC. Semon later discovered that this material was inexpensive, durable, fire-resistant, and easily molded.
Saran	1933, Ralph Wiley, a Dow Chemical lab worker, accidentally discovered yet another plastic -- polyvinylidene chloride
Teflon	DuPont chemist named Roy Plunkett discovered Teflon, in 1938