Both waterproof and airtight, cellophane is now used for everything from food packaging to sticky tape. The man who invented it—Swiss textiles engineer Jacques E. Brandenberger (1872-1954)—initially wanted to develop a clear coating for cloth to make it waterproof after witnessing a wine spill on a restaurant tablecloth. He tried coating cloth with a thin sheet of viscose, but viscose made the cloth too stiff. The transparent sheet of film separated easily from the cloth and Brandenberger soon realized that the film itself had more potential than the waterproofed cloth.
To create cellophane, Brandenberger dissolved cellulose fibers from materials such as celery, wood, cotton, or hemp in alkali and carbon disulfide to make viscose, which is then extruded through a slit into an acid bath to reconvert the viscose back into cellulose. The acid regenerates the cellulose, which forms a film, and further treatment—for example washing and bleaching—produces cellophane. (Rayon is made by a similar process, but the viscose is extruded through a hole rather than a slit.)
Brandenberger named the substance cellophane after "cello," from cellulose, and "phane" from the French word diaphane, meaning transparent. It took the scientist almost a decade to perfect the substance and produce it commercially, and, in 1927, the invention of a waterproof lacquer created moistureproof cellophane, which meant that it could be used to package food.
The use of cellophane for packaging has decreased since the 1960s, and DuPont, the company that introduced it to the United States, even discontinued the product in 1986. Yet, despite this, cellophane's 100 percent biodegradability means that it could be due for a comeback.
