Synthetic rubber

About 32 million metric tons of rubbers are produced annually in the United States, and of that amount two thirds are synthetic.

In 1909, a team headed by Fritz Hofmann, working at the Bayer laboratory in Elberfeld, Germany, succeeded in polymerizing isoprene, making the first synthetic rubber.

[2][3] Studies published in 1930 written independently by the Russian Sergey Lebedev, the American Wallace Carothers and the German scientist Hermann Staudinger led in 1931 to one of the first successful synthetic rubbers, known as neoprene, which was developed at DuPont under the direction of E. K. Bolton.

Neoprene is highly resistant to heat and chemicals such as oil and gasoline, and is used in fuel hoses and as an insulating material in machinery.

A synthetic rubber plant at Oświęcim, in Nazi-occupied Poland, was under construction on March 5, 1944[10] operated by IG Farben and supplied with slave labor, by the SS, from the associated camp Auschwitz III (Monowitz).

Other synthetic rubbers include: Many variations of these can be prepared with mixtures of monomers and with various catalysts that allow for control of stereochemistry.

It is a much less resilient material than cis-polybutadiene which is frequently used in tire sidewalls to minimize energy losses and heat build-up.