SYNTHETIC RUBBER

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1932, Page 15

SYNTHETIC RUBBER

PRIESTS KONG QUEST ?

Another dream of science comes true, another laboratory romance culminates ia success,' with the production of synthetic: rubber,, says the T ,-,'aLitexary, Digest." Behind "tins. 1931 fairy" tale of fact, -spun of hard work and patient effort, lies the ■ story of the four-teen-year quest 'of a priest who tracked down, the essential secxat of .the new products

He is the Bey. Jolius Arthur Nieuwland, "who- might harni reapod a fortune from his experimentation had he not been a priest.." "Whoa ha waa ordaiaed, we iead,'lie took a vow of paver, tyi so that "whate-rcr income, may accrue from. his. 'discovery goes to- tha Congregation or tn» Holy Cross for the maintenance of all ita members. 1*

j Although this synthetic rnb&er cannot as yet lie used for automobile tiles, it is said to possess several qualities not found in natural lubber. Annonttcament of the discovery was made by E. I. dv Boat de- Nemouis 'and Company at a meeting of the American Chemical SoraetyI* robber division; 'aft Akron, Ohio.

■ "The; primary raw material far tne new robber is acetylene, which requires for its production, only coal and ihriostoae/' says tius -11111164 Press-, which tells us .that f^tha da Peat Company has started building a plant at Deepwater,, New Jersey, for its mannfaetßre on a enmmeicial scale.'* Continuing, the United P/ress ,*ays: The only other raw Materials needed, is addition to coal aad limestone, are salt and water-,, it,-was. said. More than .a aeore of

chemists worked several years perfecting the rubber. Among- the- valuable ' properties -attributed to the development is the fact that It ia mucti more, resistant to the swelling action, of gasottae,kerosene, and other solvents •which; are notorionsly harmful to rubber. Thesynthetic, product also is mqre. resistant to oxygen, ozone, and many'chemicals

Ftbat attack natural rubber, it was {said."

Aa far th» earlier chapters of this .romance, if? seems that this is another Notre Dame, viotoiy. Father Niouwlaad discovered the essential chemicals which wero to bo developed into synthetic rubber when he was a member of. the Notre Dame faculty twenty : five years ago. The United Press says:— '"He came upon the component parts of synthetic rubber by- passing acetylene into a solution of i copper and ammonium chloride. The chemical change produced a gas. .Father Nieuwland' worked fourteen years more, when, in 11930, he -•was able to alter the composition, so as to rorm an oil besides the gas. A year later the oil was determined to bo divinyl acetylene, the material from, which rubber is ,syuthesised.

"Two years later Dr. H. E. Vogt, an assistant to father Nieuwland, treated divinyl acetylene with a vulcanising agent, and produced a highly elastic material somewhat resembling rubber. Father Nieuwland realised that somewhere: in. the qualities of his acetylene developments was the, formula for rubber. Engineers of E. I. dv Pont de NemQurs and Company offered their cooperation. They took the gas he had discovered, treated it with hydrochloric acid, and, presto, they had synthetic rubber, the dream of scientists for decades.'?

Of course, "tire 'manufacturers with heavy investments in rubber plantations nave little to fear, for the present at least," as tho Springfield "Uniotn" points out. "But the now product," says the ''Christian Science Monitor," "will inaugurate research for more and better ways to use rubber, and it already promises to'have certain unusual qualities which will make it more adaptable than natural rubber foe certain uses."