Super Glue's Accidental Origin: Harry Coover's Failed Wartime Plastic

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In 1942 Harry Coover Jr. led a team trying to make clear plastic for military gun sights. One compound, cyanoacrylate, stuck to every mold and instrument it touched, so they shelved it as a failure. B.F. Goodrich filed the first patent in 1947, but the real turn came in 1951, when Coover, by then at Eastman Kodak, looked again and saw an adhesive instead of a ruined plastic. Kodak brought it to market in 1958 as Eastman 910.

This episode explains both the business fight and the chemistry behind super glue. Loctite went from repackaging Kodak's product to overtaking it with its own Super Bonder line in the 1970s. The glue itself cures because hydroxide ions in trace moisture trigger chain growth polymerization, which is why a mild acid keeps it liquid in the bottle. That same hunger for water led to battlefield wound sprays, fingerprint fuming, coral grafting, and some real hazards.

• Medics in the Vietnam War sprayed a cyanoacrylate formula on lacerations to stop bleeding. Standard ethyl cyanoacrylate releases formaldehyde too quickly inside the body, so medical versions like Dermabond use 2-octyl cyanoacrylate, which degrades far more slowly.
• Forensic teams heat the glue into fumes inside a chamber. The vapor polymerizes on the moisture in latent fingerprints and builds a hard white replica of the ridges.
• Cyanoacrylate has high tensile strength but low shear strength. Woodworkers exploit this by gluing work to a sacrificial block on a lathe, then knocking it free with a mallet.
• Spilled on cotton, wool, or leather, the glue cures so fast that it releases intense heat, enough to burn skin and scorch fabric. Safety sheets warn against wearing cotton gloves.
• An unopened bottle lasts about a year, longer in a refrigerator, but it must warm to room temperature before opening or condensation will ruin it. Once opened, use it within 30 days.