Cyanoacrylate

Cyanoacrylate—Super Glue—was invented by accident twice, its extreme stickiness recognized as a defect before becoming its defining feature. The adhesive emerged because World War II demanded optically clear plastics for military applications, and a chemist's frustration with an inconvenient compound eventually transformed into appreciation.

In 1942, Harry Coover, a research chemist at Eastman Kodak, was developing optically clear plastics for gun sights. One compound, a cyanoacrylate monomer, proved impossibly sticky—it bonded to everything it touched and ruined laboratory equipment. Coover set it aside as unsuitable. The same year, cyanoacrylates were tested for cockpit covers but rejected for identical reasons: too adhesive for any practical application.

Nine years later, in 1951, Coover transferred to Kodak's chemical plant in Kingsport, Tennessee, where he supervised researchers developing heat-resistant polymers for jet canopies. His colleague Fred Joyner rediscovered cyanoacrylates while testing compounds by spreading ethyl cyanoacrylate between refractometer prisms. The prisms bonded so solidly they became inseparable.

This time, Coover recognized the potential. The adhesive required no heat, no pressure, no curing time—it polymerized instantly upon contact with trace moisture in the air or on surfaces. Any two surfaces pressed together became permanently joined within seconds. Rather than a manufacturing defect, this was a revolutionary property.

Coover received patent 2,768,109 for his 'Alcohol-Catalyzed Cyanoacrylate Adhesive Compositions' and commercialized the product as Eastman 910 in 1958. By then, Super Glue had demonstrated capabilities beyond consumer applications. During the Vietnam War, field surgeons sprayed cyanoacrylate on potentially fatal wounds to stop bleeding instantly, buying time for proper treatment. This emergency use evolved into medical applications including sutureless surgery, vein and artery rejoining, and bleeding ulcer treatment.

Harry Wesley Coover Jr. (1917-2011) accumulated 460 patents during his career, but Super Glue remained his signature achievement. In 2010, President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He became affectionately known as 'the man who invented the stuff that sticks'—a substance discovered when researchers were looking for something else entirely, rejected for the very property that later made it indispensable.