Marvin Pipkin

Marvin Pipkin (Nov. 18, 1889 - Jan. 7, 1977), American chemist and inventor of two processes for inside frosting of incandescent lamp bulbs.

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Born near Lakeland, Florida, Pipkin attended Alabama Polytechnic Institute and received a Batchelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering in 1913 and a Master's in 1915. In 1917 Pipkin enlisted in the US Army and was assigned work on gas masks. His wartime work was at the General Electric Nela Park laboratory in Cleveland where he remained after the war.

In 1925 Pipkin developed a process for etching the inside of a lamp bulb with acid, using a two-step process so that the lamp would not be excessively weakend. In 1947 a silica coating process also invented by Pipkin replaced the etching. ^[1]

Pipkin retired back to Lakeland in 1954, and died of cancer in 1977.

Patents

• (U.S. Patent No. 1,687,510)
• (U.S. Patent No. 2,545,896)

References

Pipkin biography retrieved 2006 June 27

1. ^ Incandescent Lamps, General Electric Technical Publication TP 110,Nela Park, 1964 page 3