Leo Baekeland’s Aldehydes and the Toxic Smell of New Automobiles

The automobile industry’s interest in plastics started with an aldehyde: phenol formaldehyde, also known as Bakelite.

Invented in 1907 in Yonkers, New York, by Belgian chemist Leo Henricus Arthur Baekeland (hence, the name Baekelite, now more commonly Bakelite), the world’s first synthetic plastic was, in fact, a thermosetting polymer. Baekeland introduced it to the world at a chemical conference in 1909.

Later known as “the material of a thousand uses,” one of Bakelite’s first applications was as the knob on the gear lever in a Rolls-Royce. The company later used it in other items such as junction boxes and ignition coils. As that cross-section of readers who are both process engineers and Rolls-Royce enthusiasts will tell you, an original Bakelite ignition coil will set you back about $500 today.

By 1930, Baekeland had over 400 patents relating to his creation and a manufacturing facility occupying 128 acres in New Jersey. However, as newer plastics proved less brittle and easier to color, Bakelite fell out of favor. Nevertheless, the automobile industry’s love affair with all things plastic progressed — so much so that today, advanced polymers and composites can replace pretty much any traditional metal parts.

Key Takeaways

Bakelite Revolution: Leo Baekeland's invention of Bakelite in 1907, the first synthetic plastic, sparked widespread use in the automobile industry, with Rolls-Royce using it in gear levers and ignition coils.
EV Plastic Innovation: New plastic technologies, like Solvay’s Xencor Xtreme and SABIC’s STAMAX, are designed to withstand high temperatures, improving electric vehicle safety in thermal runaway situations.
Toxic "New Car Smell": Recent studies highlight the health risks posed by volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including formaldehyde, emitted by new car interiors, particularly under high heat conditions.

EVs and Plastics

The rise of electric vehicles (EVs) has only advanced their applications. For example, two of the latest offerings will ensure you have a better chance of surviving if your EV goes up in flames.

Solvay’s Xencor Xtreme is a new family of long glass fiber polyphthalamide (PPA) materials designed to resist direct flame exposure at 1,000℃ for over 10 minutes. This, says the Brussels-based company, provides sufficient time for passengers to exit the vehicle in the event of a thermal runaway.

SABIC, Sittard, The Netherlands, is rising to the same challenge with its STAMAX 30YH570 resin. According to the company, this 30% glass fiber-reinforced copolymer resin is the first polymer used in EV battery systems to receive the UL mark from the safety science organization Underwriters Laboratories. This, said SABIC, will give customers high confidence in the product's flame delay performance.

Aromatic Toxic Interiors

Even so, Baekeland’s polymer legacy is producing headaches. That much-loved “new car smell” is actually a cocktail of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can induce inflammation of the eyes, nose and throat and cause fatigue, irritability, dry cough, lung disease and even disorientation.

A study of VOCs emitted by new cars on hot summer days has found concerning levels of formaldehyde and other aldehydes. The work, carried out by scientists from Harvard and the Beijing Institute of Technology in China, involved sampling VOCs from a vehicle cabin when outside temperatures ranged from 25.3°C– 46.1°C (77.5°F –115°F).

The scientists tested a one-month-old hybrid electric car from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in diverse summer weather conditions, including sunny, cloudy, and rainy days. The car remained in an engine-off, stationary state for the study, which was published in PNAS Nexus.

Among the 12 different VOCs identified, particularly high levels of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and hexaldehyde were present. Formaldehyde levels in the experimental car sometimes exceeded 200 μg/m³, twice the level permitted by the Chinese government. Acetaldehyde levels reached 140 μg/m³ — almost three times the prescribed limit.

A machine learning model of the data identified material surface temperature as the most important influence on in-cabin VOC concentrations, followed by in-cabin relative humidity, in-cabin air temperature and air exchange rate.

According to the study’s authors, the model could be used for in-cabin concentration prediction and exposure assessment, which could be integrated with the control system of intelligent cars.

More on Baekeland’s Work

In fairness to Baekeland, his legacy doesn’t extend solely to polymers. His early interest in photography led him to develop Velox, the first commercially successful photographic paper. This was in the late 1800s in his native Belgium and the idea interested a group of American chemists who met him when he arrived on a travel scholarship to the United States in 1889.

However, the United States was in a recession and Baekeland struggled to find investors. So, he set up the Nepera Chemical Company in Yonkers. In 1899, he sold Nepera to George Eastman — of Eastman Kodak fame — for nearly US$1 million. That’s around US$35 million in 2024, give or take a few million.

Baekeland used some of the money to buy a house in Yonkers, where he set up his own well-equipped laboratory and invented Baekelite/Bakelite.

Baekeland passed away in 1944 at 80 years old.