Stephanie Kwolek

Stephanie Kwolek

1. Stephanie earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University.

2. She began working at DuPont in 1946.

   • There, she searched for a synthetic material to create a fiber that was able to withstand extreme conditions
     • Discovered that after being dissolved in solvent, aramid polyamides could be spun into fibers of extraordinary strength and stiffness
       • The material was 5x stronger than steel, extremely lightweight, and didn’t rust or corrode
         • This fiber was patented in 1966—DuPont named it Kevlar

3. She also discovered the family of synthetic fibers: poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide

4. Patented a method with her coworkers for preparing PBO and PBT polymers

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