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Article: In the 1940s: wartime rubber crunch gives bounce to fledgling science of latex resins.(90 years with PCI: a retrospective)
- Article from:
- Paint & Coatings Industry
- Article date:
- August 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 BNP Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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There may be few better examples of that old saw about necessity as the mother of invention than the origins of synthetic latexes and latex-based paints.
The necessity in this case was presented by the extenuating circumstances surrounding World War II. which put a severe crimp in the supply of natural rubber needed for crucial strategic uses. The U.S. government, as a result, launched an ambitious program to develop alternative materials.
In the case of rubber, it was known that the natural version was essentially a polymer of neoprene. Researchers found that a synthetic rubber comparable in quality to the real thing could be made using 1.3 butadiene. ...