Rubber Reserve

Between the 1920s when the initial commercial development of mbbery elastomers based on 1,3-dienes began (5—7), and 1955 when transition metal catalysts were fkst used to prepare synthetic polyisoprene, researchers in the U.S. and Europe developed emulsion polybutadiene and styrene—butadiene copolymers as substitutes for natural mbber. However, the tire properties of these polymers were inferior to natural mbber compounds. In seeking to improve the synthetic material properties, research was conducted in many laboratories worldwide, especially in the U.S. under the Rubber Reserve Program. 

The Government Rubber Reserve Company in the 1940s pioneered the development of styrene-butadiene copolymers, by far the largest volume of synthetic rubber used today. Now usually known as SBR, it has also been called Buna-S, Rzrtadiene with a sodium (Na) catalyst and copolymerized... 

Following the Japanese blockade of exports from the natural rubber plantations of Malaysia, the United States established the Rubber Reserve Program, a crash program... 

Work done under contract with the Office of Rubber Reserve. 

W8. Winding, C. C., Dittman, F. W., and Kranich, W. L. Thermal Properties of Synthetic Rubber Latices, Report to Rubber Reserve Company. Cornell University, Ithaca, 1944. 

Meanwhile, Arnold Beckman (b.1900), hitherto a manufacturer of electronic pH meters, had joined forces with Robert Brattain - the brother of Walter Brattain of transistor fame - at Shell Research, with the encouragement of the U. S. Government s Rubber Reserve Company. Beckman s first commercial infrared spectrometer, the IR-1, was developed in 1942 and was used by the wartime synthetic rubber research program. However, the classified nature of this and similar work meant that Beckman spectrometers were not generally available until 1945, when the IR-2 was marketed. Meanwhile, in Britain, Adam Hilger and Grubb Parsons independ-... 

This investigation was carried out under the sponsorship of the Office of Rubber Reserve, Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in connection with the Government Synthetic Rubber Program. 

Rubber Reserve Company, Report on the Rubber Program 1940-1945. Covers activities of Rubber Reserve Company from June 1940 to February 1945. Data on government-owned plants in the synthetic rubber program. 

Debye, R, Technical Report No 637 to Rubber Reserve Company, Washington, April 9, 1945. 

Dr. Bovey was born in Minneapolis in 1918. He received a B.S. degree in chemistry from Harvard in 1940, worked during World War II for the National Synthetic Rubber Corporation, a 3M subsidiary, and entered graduate school at the University of Minnesota as a Rubber Reserve Fellow in 1945. His thesis work, carried out under the direction of 1. M. Kolthoff, dealt with the mechanism of free radical polymerization. During this time he worked out the mechanism of oxygen inhibition and discovered oxygen styrene copolymers. 

The Mooney viscometer was developed by Melvin Mooney of the U.S. Rubber Co. in the 1930s and was adopted as the standard method for controlling the quality of GR-S (SBR) by the Technical Committee of the Rubber Reserve Co. in 1942 [91). Since then, the Mooney viscometer has become the standard method for testing raw rubber as well as mixed stocks. A cross section of the Mooney viscometer is shown in Fig. 22. This method consists of rotating a special serrated rotor while embedded in a rubber sample within a... 

Hohenstein and Mark [4] reviewed the early development of emulsion and suspension polymerization. Talalay and Magat [5] described work in the former USSR in detail. Dunbrook [6] described how the production of synthetic rubber was organized in the USA during the Second World War. Already in 1933 General nre Rubber had tested Buna S for tyre production, but found it inferior to natural rubber. Nevertheless German production increased from 300 tons per year in 1935 to 5000 tons per year in 1937 in pursuance of the aim of making the country independent of imported raw materials. The oil resistant butadiene-acrylonitrile copolymer Buna N created more interest in the USA and a pilot plant was in operation by the end of 1939. The US government established the Office of the Rubber Reserve in May 1940 primarily to create a stockpile of natural rubber, but the constmction of four plants with a total capacity of 40000 tons per year was authorized. As a consequence of the Japanese occupation of Malaya in 1942 which cut off supplies of natural rubber, the... 

It was my privilege to know Paul when he was at Cincinnati and I was at Akron. I envied his university association and was surprised when he left Cincinnati to join Standard Oil at Linden, NJ in 1940. Our paths crossed again when I served as a consultant for Rubber Reserve Corp. on the butyl rubber program. However, to my knowledge, Paul did not attempt to correct tlie difficulties experienced by Standard Oil when its attempts to produce this elastomer at Baton Rouge, LA were unsuccessful. Of course, it is a pleasure for me to report that Dr. John Durland and I were able to solve the production problem and make possible the commercial products of this important elastomer. 

---