Bachelor of Science from Hobart College before earning his Master of Science and Ph. D. from Cornell University.
Eastman Kodak from 1944–1973
Vice President of the company from 1973-1984.
1942, while searching for materials to make clear plastic gun sights, Coover and his team at Eastman Kodak first worked with cyanoacrylates, rejecting them as too sticky.
Nine years later,
1958, the adhesive, marketed by Kodak as Super Glue, was introduced for sale.
overseeing Kodak chemists investigating heat-resistant polymers for jet canopies when cyanoacrylates were once again tested and proved too sticky.
cyanoacrylate is an acrylic resin which rapidly polymerises in the presence of water (specifically hydroxide ions), forming long, strong chains, joining the bonded surfaces together.
Cyanoacrylate is used as a forensic tool to capture latent fingerprints on non-porous surfaces like glass, plastic, etc.
Chemical structure of methyl cyanoacrylate, the basis of Superglue
Coover was also the first to recognize and patent cyanoacrylates as a tissue adhesive.
Vietnam War to temporarily patch the internal organs of injured soldiers until conventional surgery could be performed,
460 patents, and Super Glue was just one of his many discoveries
Implemented at Kodak, programmed innovation resulted in the introduction of 320 new products and sales growth from $1.8 billion to $2.5 billion.
Coover received the Southern Chemist Man of the Year Award for his outstanding accomplishments in individual innovation and creativity.
2004,
inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame.
The compact audio discs that have revolutionized high fidelity music recording will soon do the same for information storage. The new generation compacts discs will be able to hold up to 250,000 pages of text and thousands of full-color images.