Timeline of materials technology

Updated on Sep 30, 2024

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Major innovations in materials technology

BCE

29,000–25,000 BCE – First pottery appears

28,000 BCE – People wear beads, bracelets, and pendants

3rd millennium BCE – Copper metallurgy is invented and copper is used for ornamentation

2nd millennium BCE – Bronze is used for weapons and armor

16th century BCE – The Hittites develop crude iron metallurgy

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

10th century BCE – Glass production begins in ancient Near East

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

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

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

50s BCE – Glassblowing techniques flourish in Phoenicia

20s BCE – 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

671 – Kallinikos of Byzantium invents a missile weapon made of sulfur, resin, rocksalt, and petroleum that can set targets on fire, called Greek fire

720 – Abu Masa Dshaffar discovers sulfuric acid, nitric acid, aqua regia, and silver nitrate

750 – Geber, an Arabian alchemist, describes the preparation of aluminum chloride, white lead, nitric acid, and acetic acid

8th century – Porcelain is invented in Tang Dynasty China

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

9th century – Stonepaste ceramics invented in Iraq

900 – Al-razi, known as Rhazes, a Persian physician and alchemist, 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 lenses 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

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

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

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

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

References

Timeline of materials technology Wikipedia

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