'The processes to be taken over by the Company for the manufacture of synthetic rubber are the result of nearly three years' work of a distinguished group of chemists and bacteriologists. It is stated in the prospectus that it soon became apparent to the allied workers that if either acetone or fusal oil could be obtained cheaply the problem of making synthetic rubber on @ commercial basic would be solved. Parallel with Professor Fernbach's successful work in connexion with the manufacture of acetone and fusal oil, the other allied workers have been developing a number of possible methods for the manufacture of synthetic rubber, and the net results of the work at the present time are summed up es fol-jows:—The cheapest method is that which employs fusal oil as a base. The fusal oil is treated under special conditions with hydrochloric and subsequently with chlorine and with lime. This treatment produces either isoprene or a homologue of isoprene. Dr. Matthews's sodium process then converts the soprene into rubber. By allowing the isoprene or the homologue cof isoprene to stand in contact with sodium, it is converted into rubber with " loss which does not exceed two per cent, Professor Cai University of Kiel, quite independently of Dr. Matthews, but three months later, discovered the sodium polymerization process.
The prospectus adds:—Whilst the acetone and fusal oil processes have been worked on a large scale, the results as regards rubber have been obtained in the laboratory only, working with small quant under exact conditions. With the supply of fusal oil at £35-£45 per ton, and assuming that it will be possible to obtain as satisfactory a result in manufacturing synthetic rubber on the large scale as upon the small, there is reason to expect that the price of synthetic rubber will not exceed one shilling per pound, and may ultimately be reduced to about sixpence per pound. It is now established that:—(1) The product is real rubber. (2) The product vulcanizes both by the hot and cold processes. (3) It has the Same behaviour to solvents, recipitants and chemical reagents natural rubber. If the Company is successful in displacing by synthetic rubber only a part of the 34,800 tons of the comparatively lowest grades of rubber—classed as "Africa and the rest of the world" as apart from Ceylon and Malaya (planta tion) and Amazonas and Brazil (Para)—, and of making a profit of sixpence per pound thereon, there should be a profit from the rubber
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.