SYNTHETIC RUBBER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 121, 14 January 1932, Page 2

SYNTHETIC RUBBER

. " t POSSESSES QUALITIES NOT FOUND IN NATURAL SUBSTANCE. PRIEST'S' LONG QUFST. Another dream of science, comes ;true,_,another ^ laboratory romance culmihates in success, witih the production' of synthetic rubber; says the "L'iterjary iQigest." Behind this 1931 fairy [tale Of fact, spun of hard work and pd-j-tient effort, lies the story of the four- | teen-year quest of a priesf whb trackbd down the . essential secret of the new product. ' He is th,e Rev. Julius Arthur Nieuw- , land, "who might have MSped a f oftune from his experimentation had he :not been a priest." When he was ordained, We . read, he topt a vow of poverty, so that "whatevef income may accrue from his discovery goes to the Congregatioii of the Holy Cross for the maintenance of all its members." Although this synthetic rubber cannot as yet b 6 use d for automobile tyres, it is said to possess sevefal qualities not found in natural rub-

ber. More Resistant. "The primary raw material. for the new rubber is acetylene, which requires for its production^ only coal and limestone," says the United Pfess, which tells us that "the du Poht Company has started building; a piaTnt at Deepwater, New Jersey„for its mahufacture on a commercial scale." Continuing, the United Press says; "The only other raw materials needed, in addition to coal and limestone, are salt and water, it was said. More than a score of chemists worked several years perfecting the mbber. Amo'ng the valuable properties attributed to the development is the fact that it is much more resistant to the swelling action-of gasoline, kerosene, and other sqlvents which are not'oriously haripful to rubber. The synthetic product also is more resistant to oxygen, ozone, and many chemicals that attack natural rubber, it waS said." Notre Dame Victory. As for the earlier chapters of this romance, it seems that this is another Notre Dame Victory.' Father Niefiwland discovered the essential. chemicals which were to be 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 aeetylene- into a solution of copper and ammonium chloride. The chemical change produced a gas. Father Nieuwland worked fou'rteen years more; when, in 1920, he was able to altfr the composition so as to form an oil besides the gas. A year Iater the oil was determined to be divinyl acetylene, the material from which rubber is syn-

thesised. 'Dream Realised. "Two years later Dr. R. R. Vogt, an assistant to Father Nieuwland, treated divinyl acetylene with a vulcanising agent, and produced a highly elastic material somewhat resembling rubber. r ather Nieuwland realised that'somewhere in the qualities of his acetylene developments was the formula for rubber. Engineers of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company offered their co-operation. They took the gas he had discovered, treated it with hyrochloric acid, and, presto, they had synthetic -rubber, the dream of scientists for decades." Of course, "tyre manufacturers with heavy investments in rubber plantations have little to fear, for the present at least," as the Springfield "Union" points out. 'But the new 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 for certain uses."