Stephanie Kwolek, Kevlar inventor, dies at 90

0

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Police Lt. David Spicer took four
.45-caliber slugs to the chest and arms at point-blank range and lived
to tell about it. Like thousands of other police officers and soldiers
shot in the line of duty, he owes his life to a woman in Delaware by the
name of Stephanie Kwolek.
Kwolek, who died Wednesday at 90, was a
DuPont Co. chemist who in 1965 invented Kevlar, the lightweight,
stronger-than-steel fiber used in bulletproof vests and other body armor
around the world.
A pioneer as a woman in a heavily male field,
Kwolek made the breakthrough while working on specialty fibers at a
DuPont laboratory in Wilmington. At the time, DuPont was looking for
strong, lightweight fibers that could replace steel in automobile tires
and improve fuel economy.
"I knew that I had made a discovery,"
Kwolek said in an interview several years ago that was included in the
Chemical Heritage Foundation’s "Women in Chemistry" series. "I didn’t
shout ‘Eureka,’ but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory
excited, and management was excited because we were looking for
something new, something different, and this was it."
Spicer was
wearing a Kevlar vest when he was shot by a drug suspect in 2001. Two
rounds shattered his left arm, ripping open an artery. A third was
deflected by his badge. The last one hit his nametag, bending it into a
horseshoe shape, before burrowing into his vest, leaving a 10-inch tear.
"If that round would have entered my body, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now," the Dover
police officer said.
While recovering from his wounds, Spicer spoke briefly by telephone with Kwolek and thanked her.
"She was a tremendous woman," he said.
In
a statement, DuPont CEO and Chairwoman Ellen Kullman described Kwolek,
who retired in 1986, as "a creative and determined chemist and a true
pioneer for women in science."
Kwolek is the only female employee
of DuPont to be awarded the company’s Lavoisier Medal for outstanding
technical achievement. She was recognized as a "persistent
experimentalist and role model."
"She leaves a wonderful legacy of
thousands of lives saved and countless injuries prevented by products
made possible by her discovery," Kullman said.
During the "Women
in Chemistry" interview, Kwolek recounted the development of Kevlar. She
said she 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. She persuaded a skeptical colleague to put the solution into
a spinneret, which turns liquid polymers into fibers.
"We spun it and it spun beautifully," she recalled. "It was very strong and very stiff,
unlike anything we had made before."
The
exceptionally tough fibers she produced were several times stronger by
weight than steel. So strong, according to friend and former colleague
Rita Vasta, that DuPont had to get new equipment to test the tensile
strength.
"DuPont was big in Nylon, Dacron," Vasta explained. "This was way stronger than any of
those types of fibers."
Spicer
and more than 3,100 other 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.
While Kevlar has
become synonymous with protective vests and helmets, it has become a
component material in products ranging from airplanes and armored
military vehicles to cellphones and sailboats.
"Rest in peace,
Stephanie Kwolek. Thank you for inventing Kevlar and saving Soldiers’
lives," the U.S. Army tweeted Friday evening.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said in a statement that Kwolek had made the world safer.
Vasta
said Kwolek had been ill about a week, although she didn’t know the
cause of death. Vasta said a Catholic funeral Mass is scheduled June 28.

No posts to display