Nylon
. Nylon, term applied to a synthetic resin widely used for textile fibers, characterized by great strength, toughness, and elasticity, and processed also in the form of bristles and molded articles. Nylon was developed in the 1930s by scientists of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, headed by the American chemist Wallace Hume Carothers. It is usually made by polymerizing adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine, an amine derivative. Adipic acid is derived from phenol; hexamethylenediamine is made by treating adipic acid catalytically with ammonia and hydrogenating the product Hydrogenation. Nylon is insoluble in water and in ordinary organic solvents; it dissolves in phenol, cresol, and formic acid, and melts at 263° C (505° F). In making textile fibers, small chips of the nylon polymer, which is obtained as a tough, ivorylike material, are melted and forced through holes in a metal disk called a spinneret. The filaments are congealed by a blast of air and are then drawn to about four ti...