Synthetic rubber is an artificial elastomer synthesized from petroleum byproducts rather than harvested from the sap of rubber trees, valued in applications such as tires, seals and hoses for its thermal stability and resistance to oils. Fritz Hofmann's team at Bayer's Elberfeld laboratory in Germany produced the first synthetic rubber by polymerizing isoprene in 1909, and following theoretical work published independently in 1930 by Sergey Lebedev, Wallace Carothers and Hermann Staudinger, chemists under E. K. Bolton at DuPont developed neoprene in 1931, one of the first commercially successful synthetic rubbers, prized for its heat and chemical resistance. Further variants followed quickly, including the Buna copolymer rubbers developed by German chemists and Waldo Semon's Koroseal, both in 1935, establishing synthetic rubber as a major industrial material well before natural rubber supplies were disrupted in the Second World War.
Facts
SignificanceAbout two thirds of the roughly 32 million tonnes of rubber produced annually in the United States is synthetic rather than natural rubber. 1 FAQs
Why did the United States expand synthetic rubber production during World War II?
Because the Axis powers controlled nearly all natural rubber supplies by mid-1942.
Natural rubber supplies were largely cut off. By mid-1942 the Axis powers controlled nearly all of the world's limited supplies of natural rubber, following the Japanese conquest of most of Asia, including British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, where much of the global supply was sourced. Even so, synthetic rubber production was still not enough to remove the threat that the United States would run out of rubber.
Connections
Associated With
Rubber, Materials Synthetic rubber was developed as an engineered substitute for natural rubber.
In Field
Source Synthetic Rubber (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Synthetic Rubber (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationHistory section
In 1909, a team headed by Fritz Hofmann, working at the Bayer laboratory in Elberfeld, Germany, succeeded in polymerizing isoprene, making the first synthetic rubber.
Lead section
About 32 million tonnes (35 million short tons; 31 million long tons) of rubber is produced annually in the United States, and of that amount two thirds are synthetic.
- In Group: Synthetic Polymers and Polymerization Processes, lead sentence
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