(AATCC) awarded Neal E. Franks their Henry E. Millson Award for Invention for Lyocell. In 1966-1968, D. L. Johnson of Eastman Kodak Inc. studied NMMO solutions. From 1969 to 1979, American Enka tried unsuccessfully to commercialise the process. The operating name for the fibre inside the Enka organisation was "Newcell", and the development was carried through a pilot plant scale before the work was stopped.

The basic process of dissolving cellulose in NMMO was first described in a 1981 patent by McCorsley