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Show I f Rivalry in f .iHscoverij of jnfhetic Butter tml and that the synthetic rubber factory fac-tory would be located where It could reach easily Its raw materials and Its market (or tho .finished output Climatic and geographical conditions have prescribed the xouea la which tho rubber plant can be successfully grown, even though lta cultivation he subject to scientific method and are fret) from the haphazard ways of the rubber hunter. la Knglaud the present discoveries are hailed by Sir William Kauisay and his fellows not ao much aa a promise prom-ise of commercial advantage but as a professional achievement which puta the British chemist ahead of bis rivals acrosj the Cuannel. That the Germans have good reason to be satisfied satis-fied with their own accompllithments In this very field Is undoubtedly true. The Uernmns claim that they have now a method for making rubber synthetically which will soon be ready to compute with the output of the tropical forests. Hack In the '80 s Tlldon, an Englishman, English-man, gave long study to the problem of making synthetic rubber, but abandoned aban-doned his work finally because he did not believe the attainment practicable. The Individual was powerless to cope with so gigantic a problem and his resources were unequal to the task. Capital was necessary aa well aa the united efforts of many men. In fact In one factory alone In Germany there were 300 college bredchemistsconcen-trating bredchemistsconcen-trating upon the technical researches litres of It This showed us that we hsd the right formulae, the scientific execution of which was no longer questionable. i!ut with the making of Isoprene our troubles were not ended; on the contrary, they were but beginning. ' We were confronted with the problem pro-blem of converting this liquid Ir.to that tough, elastic, plastic colloid which was to be a succeasful substitute substi-tute for rubber. In truth Its very counterpart. Theoretically the task was easy, because, aa IlelUteln says, laoprene Is converted Into caoutchouc by treating It with muriatic acid. Of course, we tried that at once, but for our pains we got nothing but oily chlorides not a trace of rubber. W were apparently defied. " We tried H aorta of likely and Imaginable physical and chemical mediums In connection with Isoprene, but the wilful stuff refused to thicken. Finally I discovered the power to perform per-form this miracle bidden away In heat There waa nothing new In heating Uoprene, but the result we obtained thereby waa new. Other authorities had tried heat, but all they got waa either an oily or at beat a resinous aubstance. " Polymertsm In chemistry Is that proiKrty peculiar to some compounds by which they differ In their molecular mole-cular weights and also In their chemical chemi-cal properties even when formed from the same elements and combined In the same proportions. In other ar Irvaatsml " tn wor'd on the eve I "1 f ' ' ,notn8r commercial L.r?lH revolution due to an f A It 1 accidental chemical lA p- discovery? Is syuthe- V?$$J ti0 rubber olDg ,0 yjJumJ equal terms of com-' com-' 1 petition with the Juice of the trees and plants which so long have supplied the rubber commerce? Juat at the present time English and German chemista are disputing over their clalma to precedence la finding a way to create from certain raw materials a chemical counterpart of natural rubber. The world at large la not directly concerned In the determination deter-mination of thla question of priority, but It baa a very deep Interest In the commercial practicability of these dle-coverlea. dle-coverlea. Two years ago Or. F. E. Matthews of England, then associated with other dlatlngulshed chemists, among them I'rof. W. II. I'erkln, Sir William Ramsay and I'rof. Fernbach, was seeking seek-ing to perfect a cheap process for the manufacture of synthetic rubber and by chance left some Isoprene and metallic sodium In contact for a period of about two months, going off In the meanwhile for his summer outing. out-ing. I'pon his return Dr. Matthews waa ainured to And that the Isoprene bad In the Interval been converted Into solid rubber. The long sought key to the riddle waa thus uncovered by an accident. laoprene la an oily, volatile hydrocarbon. hydro-carbon. It waa obtained by distillation distilla-tion from caoutchouc fifty years ago by Williams, and the analysis of Isoprene Iso-prene showed that It was chemically Identical with the ol! of turpentine. The problem since that day has been twofold; first, to derive Isoprene from abundant raw materials, and thou to effect lta conversion Into rubber through the medium of plentiful and cheap reagents, lu order to compete with nature's product It was necessary neces-sary that artificial rubber abould be made In large quantities and at a cost which would put It on a par at least with the expense of gathering N Thousands upon thousands of experiments ex-periments have thus been brought to a crystallized knowledge which makes U possible and practicable to embark upon the manufacture of rubber synthetically syn-thetically from available cheap materials. mate-rials. Ibe plantations In the far east hava been developing over a period of fully thirty-live years, and in a senso they have the start of the artificial product In a quantitative estimate, but this advantage will not continue If the chemist manufacturer can make rubber synthetically as cheaply aa Dr. Hofmann predlcta. In 1910 and 1911 the world production produc-tion of India rubber reached a total of about 80,000 tona and the world consumption of caoutchouc waa In the neighborhood of 75,000 tona. Figuring Figur-ing the cost of thla rubber at an average aver-age of $1 a pound the total value of the production reaches $100,000,000. Synthetic rubber, It la believed, would make It possible to widen the field of application of rubber. Make-shifts Make-shifts and aubstltutes of one sort or another are now used In many directions, direc-tions, because natural rubber la too expensive. Therefore, the public la Interested in the artificial product first because It will add atablllty to tho price of the rubber from treea, and next It will make It possible to apply It In many waye now prohibited by price and the relatively limited output out-put of plantations and the wild growth. Whether the basic Isoprene be made from a starchy substance after the English process or from a product of coal, aa Dr. Hoffmann baa chosen, there will be Immense quantttlea of byproducta which will be a part of the systems employed in making lac prer. and in converting It Into counterpart coun-terpart caoutchouc In either case. It would be financially prohibitive to neglect these by-products in concentrating concen-trating upon the manufacture of artificial arti-ficial rubber. Dr. Hoffmann says that If 23 per cent of artificial rubber could be produced pro-duced from every pound of basic material, mate-rial, then a factory turning out half a million pounds a day would require 2.000,000 pounds of the mother substance, sub-stance, three-quarters of which would accumulate every twenty-four hours In the form of by producta. Thla givea an Idea of what the chemist-manufacturer haa before him, even though the aecret of aynthetlo rubber haa been aolved. With characteristic thoroughness, thorough-ness, the Germans are working away at thla end of the question. So far aa la known the German ayuthetic rubber haa met all the exacting ex-acting testa and analyses of other German chemists. On the other hand, it Is said that the English artificial rubber la not chemically Identical In its atomic makeup with natural caoutchouc, caout-chouc, and the critics declare that thla artificial aubstltute will not meet all of the requlrementa. It seema that j the artificial rubber containa one atom of carbon Icaa than nature'! caoutchouc, and whether or not this -1t c',."2? "" i-f- , -j five 31 i I i k' t!' ' I V- ' i f k '' f' I - '.;- . A" I i j f v '. ,..' .-v ' - 'M I : . 1 zlJL ill 1 ' i,t : mm.- V iVi''-.'SV'iH j l i - ! 1 , . ' """" roture's rubber and delivering It at Hit factories. Fermentation Is an action set up by various klmU of germs, and I'rof I'ernbach found the germ thnt would tonvert certain ientirul starchy mat--rials Into fucel oil. and from this fuKel til he obtained cheap litoprciie. It fcaa thla Uoprine winch Or. Matthew I arn d by accident how 'to turn Into rubber by means of sodium. Sir IVillUm Kamsay and his assoclaten believe that rubber can bo made in (his way at a cost of about 24 cenu I pound. From 25 to 28 centa a ;HJtid la what It costa now to collect rubber In the far east and amid the loresta of the Amazon The heaviest ifter eipense ia Involved In trace ;ortlng the raw material to manufacturing manufac-turing centers, and also in purifying his rubber so that It ahall be Ot to to Into the finished producta. The rubber hunter tuiiee the Juice r latex of many treea. and the raw ituit la seldom uniform and is fre-luently fre-luently filled with foreign aubstancea. md even pbblea, the latter hidden iway la the gum to Increase the eight. The cost of getting rid o hee things Is heavy, and thla rac just be borne In mind to giving pro r value to any process for the syn hetic making of rubber. It la Datura t suppose that a chemical produc t o would be subject to perfect ton Involved In that single establishment. Many factories In the fatherland had ji'ined iu this International effort to find aa artiHcml process by which rubtwr could be built up synthetically syntheti-cally from raw materi.il ri.nMy available, but to the Kltx-r'el.ler Far berifabrikeu belong the i1ltl:ic!loi of prh.rlty In the solution of the prrb'ern. Dr. FriU llofman. director In chrirt:-at chrirt:-at Elberfeld. gives his own utory of the pursuit of thi elusive key " Ky luere ciiiii.cu ruy attention was called to thia QU'Ktion of synthetic rubber throukh a lecture delivered In London about six years ago bv I'rof Ounstan. As a pharmaceutic chemist In a dye factory my work did not take me In the direction of rubber, but the problem fascinated me " 1 found on reading up the subject that caoutchouc was based on inn pre n, and I tried to prove It. To Jo that I bad to have Isoprene, and. what waa more. I had to have synthetic Isoprene Iso-prene and not the kind obtained by a dry distillation of rubber auca aa had hitherto generally ben used. I bad a task before me " To the organic chemist coal Is aa Ideal trot her substance, and I, chos It aa my basic material. In lb la we were Justified, and In Marci) of I9j Carl Coutelle and I succeeded in obtaining ob-taining tbi first large quantity of pure, ayntbetic Uoprene several I difrmce will prove vltnl either at once or later In the tnpbymei,t of the d)nt!i..tlo substance h;:s yet to be i stalilUii d Summer Sct-col. Particularly significant Is , the trrowth of tumni'-r fcbcols in tb ! Carolina, whero the movement start- j ed comparatively late. At the I'nl- versity of North Caro'lna thers was an attendance of 4".0 this year. Jimt double last year'a enrollment At tht normal school at Cr ni-boro. North Carolina, a session of eUht weeks was held, the first In the history of the institution, and 200 enthusiastic tench-ers tench-ers were tn attendance. At the summer sum-mer session of the Winthrop Normal ColleK. Itock lllll. South Carolina, particular attention waa paid to problems prob-lems of Industrial education and rural achoola, and men of national prominence promi-nence participated In the work. Growth Attached to It. "Tou've been sleeping in the fe'e phone booth, I believe." said Ibe tuar.ager of the summer hotel. -Yea" "I can give you a billiard tall now If you like" "No: I'll stick to the boo'a. I rs'h r like the room. It !n't large, tut It's cosy." words, the structural atoms are differ-ent!y differ-ent!y arranged, and the body or nub-tiiico nub-tiiico thus dl.Ter from another of tbf, same chemical get up but with its tiny units otherwise distributed. "We ki on recognized that '.i'-f o!-rr. o!-rr. rl.Ir.g power of heat could b furthered by uutmroua ch"tuical ad miitures, but we soon found that tlx re are many more subptano-s that otk In oppokitlon to this end In Aurust of 19.13 I obtilned the first ruliber piUymerlxed by ht at In tV laboratory of the K!b rfeld works. In September of that year I submitted a tiample of thla material to Dr. Oertach. He waa the Erst to confirm that oue product actually contained caoutchoic. A month 4ater Harries tested our synthetic material with his ozone method, and by this means I was able to establish that our heat polrmerlied tsopraue waa veritable Ind.a rubber." Lr liofmann frankly admits that should the extensive rubber plantations planta-tions cultivated under English direction direc-tion In the Malay Archipelago meet expectations synthetic rubber will cot be sA necessary la supplying at a more reasonable rste the present market However, he saya that the syntheslst has so adjusted conditions that he can compete with bia ware In price and quality with the natural I rod act |
