Synthetic Rubbers: A Review of Their Compositions, Properties, and Uses

Abstract

Abstract Synthetic rubber has been the dream of many during the century which has passed since Faraday first determined the carbon-hydrogen ratio in natural rubber, but it has completed only about a decade of commercial success. Every year of the past ten has seen an increase in the quantity produced, the number of varieties available, and the number of applications. The aims in various countries have been different, and the development has proceeded in different directions. The most active research has been carried on in Germany, Russia, and the United States. There has been relatively little collection and intercomparison of the rather limited data on the physical properties of the different varieties of synthetic rubber. Scientific articles have been largely devoted to descriptions of single varieties or to discussions of limited phases of the work with respect to one variety. The present paper represents an attempt to make a summary of the facts regarding the different varieties, an intercomparison of some of their properties, as reported in previous publications, and to present a fairly complete bibliography of the modern literature on the subject of synthetic rubber. Because of the relatively short time during which the different varieties of synthetic rubber have been available, the data concerning them have been reported almost entirely by observers in the laboratories of companies each interested in the manufacture and sale of a particular variety. In almost every case, therefore, the figures necessarily lack independent confirmation.