Johann Eduard Simon (18 September 1789 – 19 June 1856) was an

apothecary ''Apothecary'' () is a mostly archaic term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons, and patients. The modern chemist (British English) or pharmacist (British and North Amer ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Johann Eduard Simon accidentally discovered polystyrene in 1839. Simon distilled an oily substance from

storax Storax ( la, storax; el, στύραξ, ''stúrax''), often commercially sold as styrax, is a natural resin isolated from the wounded bark of ''Liquidambar orientalis'' Mill. (Asia Minor) and '' Liquidambar styraciflua'' L. (Central America) (Ha ...

, the resin of the Sweetgum tree, '' Liquidambar orientalis'', which he named "styrol". Several days later he found that the styrol had thickened, presumably due to

polymerisation In polymer chemistry, polymerization (American English), or polymerisation (British English), is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form polymer chains or three-dimensional networks. There are many for ...

, into a jelly which he dubbed styrol oxide ("Stryroloxyd").Scheirs, John
"Historical Overview of Syrenic Polymers"
in

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19th-century German chemists Apothecaries 1789 births 1856 deaths {{Germany-engineer-stub