In July 1906 he returned to Russia and in February 1907 was hired at the Moscow State University (MSU) as an assistant in the laboratory of inorganic and physical chemistry, led by Professor Sabaneev.
The butadiene production method, which was based on aldol condensation of acetaldehyde (1905), was also implemented on industrial scale in Germany in 1936.
Another method was based on passing vapors of ethanol and acetaldehyde at 440–460°C over aluminium oxide (1915) and received industrial use in 1942–1943 in the United States.
[3] In 1910s Ostromislensky also started shifting his attention toward biochemical, immunochemical and pharmaceutical research, as indicated by that he had two doctoral degrees from University of Zurich, in philosophy and medicine.
There he studied the structure and properties of the popular foreign drug Salvarsan and developed the method of manufacturing a domestic analogue called Arsol.
Arsol was based on relatively cheap production of colloidal arsenic that was important in the time of the Civil Wars and economic crisis in Russia.
There he assumed a position of assistant professor at the department of organic chemistry of University of Latvia in Riga.
In 1925 he opened his "Ostro Research Laboratory", where he studied the pharmaceutical properties of various compounds based on arsenic and vegetable oils which were used to treat leprosy.
[6] In 1930 Ostromislensky received U.S. citizenship and was invited to work in the company Union Carbide to develop commercial production of butadiene from ethanol.
[3] In one of developed by him reactions, ethanol is oxidized to acetaldehyde, which reacts with additional ethanol over a tantalum-promoted porous silica catalyst at 325–350°C to yield butadiene:[7] This process was used in the United States to produce government rubber during World War II, and remains in use today in China and India.