David S. Breslow (August 13, 1916May 26, 1995) was an American

industrial chemist The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products. The pla ...

best known for his work on

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

Early life and education

Breslow was born on August 13, 1916, and raised in

Queens, New York Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long I ...

. He developed an early interest in chemistry after inheriting a chemistry set which he and a friend used to make

stink bomb A stink bomb, sometimes called a stinkpot, is a device designed to create an unpleasant smell. They range in effectiveness from being used as simple pranks to military grade malodorants or riot control chemical agents. History A stink bomb ...

s. He graduated from

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

in 1937 and subsequently earned a doctorate in

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, J.; ...

from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 1940. During World War II, he did post-doctoral work at the California Institute of Technology and research at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and Duke.

Career

In 1946, he joined the chemical manufacturing company

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

. He rose through the ranks, and in 1971, he was named senior research associate of the New Enterprise Department, the top technical position at the company. His research focused on

s. He helped develop

catalyst Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

s for the chemical reactions that produce

polyethylene Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging ( plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including bo ...

and

polypropylene Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer propylene. Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefins and ...

, and worked on the stabilization of those materials, leading to a wide array of consumer plastics applications. He also conducted research on the potential use of

copolymer In polymer chemistry, a copolymer is a polymer derived from more than one species of monomer. The polymerization of monomers into copolymers is called copolymerization. Copolymers obtained from the copolymerization of two monomer species are some ...

MVE-2 as a

cancer drug Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherap ...

. He taught part-time at the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...

from 1972 to 1987. During the 1964–1965 academic year, he took a sabbatical at the University of Munich in Germany, and in 1971 he taught at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

. Over the course of his career, he acquired 79 patents and authored 90 scientific papers as well as a two-volume textbook on polymers. He was president of the Delaware chapter of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

(ACS), and later served on the national ACS board of directors.

Retirement and death

Breslow retired in 1982. In 1988, he received the ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science. He died on May 26, 1995, at

Christiana Hospital Christiana Hospital is a 906-bed nationally ranked, non-profit, tertiary, research and academic medical center located in Stanton, Newark, Delaware, servicing the entire Delaware area and parts of southern New Jersey. Christiana Hospital is the ...

in Newark, Delaware.

Personal life

Breslow married Ann Goodman after World War II. They had three children and lived in Brandywine Hundred outside

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington ( Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

. He was a member of Congregation Beth Shalom.

Works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breslow, David S. 20th-century American chemists Polymer scientists and engineers City College of New York alumni Duke University alumni 1916 births 1995 deaths University of Delaware faculty People from Wilmington, Delaware Jewish American scientists Scientists from New York City 20th-century American Jews