Word: butyl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...material that makes this possible is butyl rubber, a synthetic which has been in commercial production for only two years. Standard Oil Development Co.. which developed it, said that butyl has now had a thorough tryout by the Army. has proved its value. Butyl's great virtue is that its carbon molecules have far fewer loose (saturated) ends than natural rubber; hence it has better resistance to chemicals, sunlight and oxygen. When torn, butyl clings together so that when a tenpenny nail was driven into a tube that had run 35,000 miles, the tube stood...
...Butyl is made from petroleum. The Army is getting 12,000,000 Ibs. a month for tire tubes. Other butyl uses: waterproof clothes, tents, hoses, draperies...
...Tubes. But the biggest "if" of all in the rubber program is butyl, the synthetic from which inner tubes were to come. Ex-Trust-Buster Thurman Arnold once hailed butyl as the king of all rubber synthetics, and roundly denounced Standard Oil (N.J.) for not putting it on the market. Standard's prompt protests that butyl was not perfected went unheard. But butyl, which was once programmed to supply 75,000 tons a year, proved Standard right, Arnold wrong. It is strangled in the intricacies of manufacture...
Item: the reaction must occur at 150° below zero, the next processing at 150° above. This type of process, which may be successful in a test tube, becomes fantastically difficult in a skyscraper-size plant. Butyl production is still negligible. The U.S. can still use Du Pont's neoprene (production: 49,000 tons yearly) for tubes. But the military long ago grabbed the lion's share of that. This left, as the only tube alternative, Buna S, mixed with the priceless crude rubber from the shrinking stockpile. On this basis the U.S. can afford few tubes...
Closely related to it is isoprene (also called methyl butadiene). Although isoprene is the basic unit in natural rubber, it is useless by itself. But when isobutylene and isoprene are polymerized together the result is Standard Oil's butyl, tough, very elastic, now favored for inner tubes. It is to be made at a rate of 100,000 tons a year...