PA (Polyamide)

When it was discovered, apparently by accident, in a DuPont laboratory, polyamide provided 1940s culture with a revolutionary material. Nylon, which is DuPont’s trade name for polyamide, established itself as part of popular culture, where its original potential was seen to be as a replacement for silk, and became a poster boy for the coming plastics age. It goes without saying that one of its major properties is its slippery silkiness, toughness and tensile strength, which is why it was such an innovation in women’s stockings.

Polyamides fill pretty much every aspect of our daily lives, from the bristles in a toothbrush to the sole of a shoe. As a moulded material, over the years polyamide has muscled in on applications where ...

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