Government Rubber—Styrene

Styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) is also known as government rubber styrene (GRS) and Buna S. 

In 1942 the Japanese overran Malaya and the then Dutch East Indies to cut off the main sources of natural rubber for the United States and the British Commonwealth. Because of this the US Government initiated a crash programme for the installation of plants for the manufacture of a rubber from butadiene and styrene. This product, then known as GR-S (Government Rubber-Styrene), provided at that time an inferior substitute for natural rubber but, with a renewed availability of natural rubber at the end of the war, the demand for GR-S slumped considerably. (Today the demand for SBR (as GR-S is now known) has increased with the great improvements in quality that have been made and SBR is today the principal synthetic rubber). 

World War II brought a renewed urgency for synthetic rubber. When the Japanese occupied the Malay Peninsula and adjacent islands, the primary source of natural rubber to the United States was cut off. Rubber companies and university scientists cooperated in developing a procedure for manufacturing a synthetic rubber called GR-S (Government Rubber—Styrene). By the late 1930s,... 

As discussed in Chapter 4, emulsion polymerization received a significant boost in the United States during the Second World War. When Japan overran countries that supplied natural rubber to the West, a crash program to manufacture synthetic rubber was initiated in the United States and Canada. The product was called Government Rubber-Styrene (GR-S), and was produced by the emulsion polymerization of butadiene and styrene. The fundamental recipe for GR-S is still used as a teaching tool for those learning the art and science of emulsion polymerization. 

GR-A Government Rubber—Acrylonitrile GR-I Government Rubber—Isobutylene GR-M Government Rubber—Monovinyl acetylene GR-P Government Rubber—Polysulphide GR-S Government Rubber—Styrene... 

Government Rubber Styrene. General-purpose synthetic rubbers that were originally produced in government owned plants as GR-S. They are copolymers obtained by the polymerization of butadiene and styrene in a ratio of approx 3 1. The chains contain a random sequence of the two monomers. Very similar in composition to Buna S, bra ton, Sol-p re pie, Stereon. Review P. Schneider el at., in Ullmann,... 

During World War II, a shortage of natural rubber was created when Japan occupied the Far Eastern nations where natural rubber was obtained. Because of the great need for rubber, the U.S. government developed what was originally known as Government Rubber Styrene-Type (GR-S) because it was the most practical to put into rapid production on a wartime scale. It was later designated GR-S. 

Table 2 Recipe for the preparation of synthetic styrene-butadiene rubber GR-S (Government Rubber - Styrene) by emulsion polymerisation atS0°C ...

In 1939 the US. government started a crash program to develop a manufactured elastomer, called the Synthetic Rubber Program (23). The new material was called GR-S (government rubber-styrene). GR-S was made by emulsion polymerization. While the Bunas was catalyzed by sodium, the latter was catalyzed by potassium persulfate. Incidentally, the emulsifier in those... 

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