In Depth
Cellophane was invented in Switzerland, and first produced there commercially in 1912. DuPont acquired U.S. patent rights in 1923 and began production in Buffalo a year later. But a serious problem soon appeared. Water could not get through but water vapor could, making cellophane useless for food packaging. DuPont scientist William Hale Charch solved the problem. After testing more than 2,000 alternatives, Charch and a team of researchers had devised a workable process, patenting a moisture-proofing system in 1927.
During World War II, DuPont’s Buffalo, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Old Hickory, Tennessee; and Clinton, Iowa, plants all produced large quantities of the material for military use. And although cellophane continued to be highly profitable through the 1950s, by the 1960s new products such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and DuPont’s own Mylar® were supplanting it. Cellophane production limped on through the 1970s and early 1980s until DuPont discontinued it in 1986.
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