The Huntsman Notebooks

Laboratory log notebooks of experiments in condensation chemistry (13 volumes, 1976-1986)

Acquired in 2025

In early 2025, Huntsman Advanced Materials in Basel donated more than 4000 monographs and journal volumes to the Iron Library. Together, they have significantly strengthened the Iron Library’s standing as one of the world’s leading private collections on the history of plastics and advanced polymers. Included in this was a small but remarkable group of partly handwritten research notebooks that give a fascinating insight into the process of research into these world changing materials.

The landscape of plastics research literature tells a familiar story. Textbooks and monographs present the established properties of materials or methods of industrial processes, while journals document rapid innovation and research discourse. However, scientific progress is seldom a straight road, even if publications sometimes make it appear so. What they rarely capture are the false starts and dead ends: failed experiments, abandoned ideas, and indirect routes that so often lead to eventual breakthroughs. The Huntsman Notebooks preserve this lesser seen side of research, offering a rare view into how plastics knowledge is actually made, in this case for condensate plastics.

Condensate plastics are polymers produced through condensation reactions, in which small molecules are released as by-products. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the plastic used in drinks bottles, is a familiar example, formed from terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, with water released during synthesis. Other examples include nylon (clothing, toothbrushes, ropes), polyurethanes (foams in furniture/mattresses), polycarbonates (CDs, safety glasses, durable containers), and phenolics (Bakelite for handles, insulators).

In the thirteen small notebooks are the records of the plastics condensate tests conducted over a ten-year span, from 1976 to 1986. They provide a running log of which experiments were carried out, when, the reagents used, whether it was a repeat test of another’s research, and a note on the chemical engineer responsible. For the first five notebooks these details are mostly handwritten, then gradually replaced with a typed sticker – possibly a duplicate of that from the experiment’s main file. They quietly map the experimental exploration and industrial research practices that are a part of the legacy of the Huntsman Corporation and an invaluable resource for researchers in the history of materials science wanting to comprehend the incremental approach through which insights have been gleaned and plastics science has advanced.

More than this, these notebooks sit within a much longer tradition. The Iron Library spans some 750 years of scientific and technological literature, from a 13th‑century codex and a Gutenberg press‑era incunabulum to publications printed just last week. While most of the collection is printed, handwritten documents have always been vital for the practice and full understanding of scientific research. Over the centuries, from medieval scholars to modern industrial researchers, notebooks have been the space where ideas are recorded, tested, questioned, and refined. In this regard the Huntsman Notebooks are a more contemporary continuity of this enduring ancient practice, making them a worthy addition as well as the first contribution of plastics literature to the manuscripts collection.