AbstractsChemistry

Following the loss early in the Pacific war of virtually the entire natural rubber supply of the United Nations1, a vast synthetic rubber program was launched with a minimum of delay. A co-polymer of butadiene and styrene (Buna-S) had previously been discovered and showed the most promise as a satisfactory natural rubber substitute. Efforts were therefore concentrated on the exhaustive investigation of all ways of producing these monomers. One of the avenues of approach was that of high temperature vapor-phase catalysis. [...]