After World War II, polyethylene led to the discovery of another material, polypropylene, in the early 1950s. Often, similar inventions take place at the same time in many different places – due to sharing and exchange of knowledge. Polypropylene was an extreme case, with nine different teams claiming to have invented it! It was a patent attorney's dream scenario, and litigation wasn't resolved until 1989.
Polypropylene managed to survive the legal process, and two American chemists working for the Dutch company Phillips Petroleum, Paul Hogan and Robert Banks, are now generally credited as the "official" inventors of the material.
Polypropylene is similar to its ancestor, polyethylene, and shares polyethylene's low cost, but is much more robust. It is used in a wide variety of applications, including food packaging, ropes, textiles, reusable containers of various types, loudspeakers, automotive components, and banknotes. Polypropylene resists the high temperatures needed for sterilisation and dish-washing, so it has many medical and household uses.
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