Cellulose nitrate is a highly flammable material, as its name implies, it is produced from cellulose (wood pulp) with concentrated nitric acid, it belongs to the class of esters, but why is it that cellulose nitrate is also called film? The answer has to do with the first use of this type of plastic. Before talking about the film, get to know the history of cellulose nitrate: it was discovered in the year 1846, it has properties such as high flammability and solubility. And it is thanks to the ability to melt that it is possible to mold this material and transform it into a variety of objects with high hardness and elasticity.
Cellulose nitrate was the first plastic to be discovered, but why was it used to make films? Because of the property of stretching into long strips that correspond to film films, those big rolls of old cinema films. Nowadays, cellulose nitrate is no longer used for this purpose, because it is very flammable and many movie relics were consumed in fires from this material.
But it wasn't just in the movies that the first plastic stood out, it was used in the manufacture of some objects such as: billiard balls, piano keyboards, cutting instrument handles, cabinet handles, etc. Before being obtained from cellulose nitrate, these objects were removed from ivory (elephant teeth).
It can be said that the first plastic took a big step in the preservation of fauna, as elephants were being cruelly slaughtered to have their teeth removed.
Even the inventor of Cellulose Nitrate, German chemist Christian Friedrich Schonbein, won an award for discovery of the plastic that replaced ivory and helped to preserve the animal species, which prevented the extinction of elephants.
By Líria Alves
Graduated in Chemistry
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Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SOUZA, Líria Alves de. "Cellulose nitrate: the invention of cinema"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/quimica/nitrato-celulose-invencao-cinema.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
