David Henry Solomon (born 19 November 1929 in Adelaide, South Australia[1]) is an Australian polymer chemist.

Solomon joined British Australian Lead Manufacturers Pty Ltd (BALM, which later became Dulux Australia Ltd) as a trainee chemist in 1946 at the age of 16.

[1] In 1990 he accepted an invitation to become the ICI Australia – Masson Professor and head of the School of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne.

After ‘retirement’ in 1995 David took up the position of honorary professorial fellow in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the university, moving the Polymer Science Group, to which he still acts as senior advisor.

For example, anomalies that were not explained by polymerization theory at the time, and the observation that during the production of polymer/mineral composites some batches underwent spontaneous combustion.

Previous theories attempted to explain radical polymerization on the basis of thermodynamic stability controlling structure.

[5] Solomon went on to lead the research team and was the principal inventor of the world's first polymer banknote, with the first note issued into circulation in 1988: the Australian bicentennial $10.