Editing Thomas Edison (section)

===Chemicals===
{{further|Great Phenol Plot}}
At the start of World War I, the American chemical industry was primitive: most chemicals were imported from Europe.  The outbreak of war in August 1914 resulted in a shortage of imported chemicals.  One of particular importance to Edison was [[phenol]], which was used to make [[phonograph]] records—presumably as [[phenolic resins]] of the [[Bakelite]] type.<ref name="auto">{{Cite book | first1 = Charles C. | last1 = Mann | first2 = Mark L. | last2 = Plummer | name-list-style = vanc | title = The Aspirin Wars: Money, Medicine, and 100 Years of Rampant Competition | location = New York | publisher = Alfred A. Knopf | date = 1991 | isbn = 978-0-394-57894-1|pages=38–41 }}</ref>

At the time, phenol came from coal as a by-product of [[coke oven]] gases or [[manufactured gas]] for [[gas lighting]].  Phenol could be nitrated to [[picric acid]] and converted to [[ammonium picrate]], a shock resistant [[high explosive]] suitable for use in artillery shells.<ref name="auto"/> Most phenol had been imported from Britain, but with war, Parliament blocked exports and diverted most to production of ammonium picrate. Britain also blockaded supplies from Germany.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}

Edison responded by undertaking production of phenol at his Silver Lake facility using processes developed by his chemists.<ref>Conot, Robert (1979), ''A Streak of Luck: The Life & Legend of Thomas Alva Edison'', Seaview Books, NY, pp. 413–414</ref> He built two plants with a capacity of six tons of phenol per day.  Production began the first week of September, one month after hostilities began in Europe.  He built two plants to produce raw material [[benzene]] at [[Johnstown, Pennsylvania]], and [[Bessemer, Alabama]], replacing supplies previously from Germany.  Edison manufactured [[aniline dyes]], which previously had been supplied by the German dye trust.  Other wartime products include [[xylene]], [[p-phenylenediamine]], [[shellac]], and pyrax.  Wartime shortages made these ventures profitable. In 1915, his production capacity was fully committed by midyear.<ref name="auto"/>

Phenol was a critical material because two derivatives were in high growth phases. Bakelite, the original [[thermoset]] plastic, had been invented in 1909. [[Aspirin]], too was a phenol derivative.  Invented in 1899, it had become a blockbuster drug. [[Bayer]] had acquired a plant to manufacture in the US in [[Rensselaer, New York]], but struggled to find phenol to keep their plant running during the war. Edison was able to oblige.<ref name="auto"/>

Bayer relied on Chemische Fabrik von Heyden, in [[Piscataway, New Jersey]], to convert phenol to salicylic acid, which they converted to aspirin. It is said that German companies bought up supplies of phenol to block production of ammonium picrate.  Edison preferred not to sell phenol for military uses.  He sold his surplus to Bayer, who had it converted to [[salicylic acid]] by Heyden, some of which was exported.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/03/aspirin-the-first-wonder-drug/|title=Aspirin: The First Wonder Drug|first=Jeff|last=Nilsson|date=March 6, 2019|website=The Saturday Evening Post}}</ref><ref name="auto"/>