Extensive research on plastics and more specifically "Bakelite" were the work of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian chemist who became a naturalised American citizen and was born in Ghent in 1863.
From the chemistry of benzene and its compounds and solvents, in 1907, Leo Baekeland developed Bakelite, a patented product that would bring the modern world into the plastics age. This invention won him the Franklin Medal in 1940.
