Wesley Memeger, Jr. details his contribution to streamlining the synthesis of Kevlar, which allowed the timely start-up of the first commercial scale Kevlar plant. In the laboratory, the polymer for Kevlar had previously been prepared by polymerizing para-phenylene diamine and terephthaloyl chloride in a mixture of two solvents, HMPA (hexamethylphosphoramide) and NMP (N-methylpyrrolidinone). Memeger found that a polymer with satisfactory molecular weight could be made using only HMPA, a discovery which made the preparation of Kevlar more commercially viable, as it allowed for a continuous polymerizer in a single solvent system.

Memeger recounts that DuPont used HMPA as the solvent for Kevlar production in the early 1970s, but after toxicology tests conducted at the company's Haskell Laboratory raised doubts about the safety of the solvent, DuPont replaced HMPA with NMP and calcium chloride. Memeger describes his subsequent work at DuPont investigating melt processible polymers, which share some properties with Kevlar but lack equivalent chemical and thermal stability, as well as his work on ring opening routes to polymers with novel properties. An accomplished artist, Memeger continues to be impressed by the elegance and simplicity of the Kevlar polymer that produces such remarkable properties. [ID: 2014249_20140819_Memeger]