Edward Goodrich Acheson
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Edward Goodrich Acheson (March 9, 1856 - July 6, 1931) was a American chemist. Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, he was the inventor of carborundum, and later a manufacturer of carborundum and graphite. Thomas Edison put him to work on September 12, 1880 at his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory under John Kruesi. Acheson experimented on making a conducting carbon that Edison could use in his electric light bulbs.
In 1884, Acheson left Edison and became supervisor at a plant competing to manufacture electric lamps. It was here he began his own experiments on methods for producing artificial diamonds in an electric furnace. He heated a mixture of clay and coke in an iron bowl with a carbon arc light and found some shiny, hexagonal crystals (silicon carbide) attached to the carbon electrode.
In 1891 Acheson built an electricity plant in Port Huron at the suggestion of Edison, and used the electricity to experiment with carborundum.
On February 28, 1893, he received a patent on this highly effective abrasive.
Carborundum is silicon carbide and it is created by electronically fusing clay and carbon. It is the second hardest surface to diamond and the hardest surface made by man.
Throughout Acheson's life, he received 70 patents relating to abrasives, graphite products, reduction of oxides, and refractories.
He died on July 6, 1931, in New York City.
In 1997, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
