Present Status of Rubber Chemicals and Reclaimed Rubber
t r&rt of The Rubbar Manufw 1341
INDUSTRIAL A N D BNG INEERING CHEMISTRY
first keven months of 1941 w88 at the
that More a.pneral&. releatles must rise nbove the 80 per-cent levi or the compounder must increaee his ueage of reclaim from 30 to 45 or even 55 LW cent. The highest reclaim ratio employed in recent ye& was 51 per c&t in 1928 (Rubber Manufacturers Association figures). That ratio may be reached again. If so, the increase from current existing practice would be at the annual rate of 12Q,ooO tons havi n g a volume equal to lO0,oOO tons of crude. In t e r m s of n a t i o d inventory of rubber, this quantity is two months’ supply. It is not to be presumed that one ton of reclahed rubber will r e p l a c e completely one t o n of c r u d e r u b b e r , even after d o w i n g for the dillerenee in
of re&
BpeCi6C gIBViW.
huthermore, although reclaim is sunerior to crude-rubber for d i n wea and for oertsjnmanufacturing prow eme8, ita quality is below that of the natural prcd-
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11
st31 further, performance has still been good and the pub& of no change. Accordingly it is nnt of reclsim employed will inin the month ahead and that the modern rubber @& will be msintsined. A8 stated, the men+ oapmity of the reclaiming industay in the UllitBd state0 is approximately a00,OOO long tons annually. The desirability of expnding this total haa beem under &Cussion with Wrious departments of the Qovernment for more than two yam, with attendant surveys of exbting manufacturing facilitiq supply of materid.% and &ort required to expand facilitieu. The productive 09 pacity of reclaLn bas been and is being carefully wmdered by the Qovanment along with the crude rubber supply and the SJmthetic rubber pasition. A reclaim expanston of subWtiaI magnitude would q u i r e a large volume of heavy maahineay, pruduction of which would interferedirectly with 6he manufacture of war equipment. In England reclaimed rubber equipment carrieu a high priority, but in this country thus far no gened priority & to have been conaidered neyawy, Aocordingly such machinery is very di5icult to o b w . (One single butmce o t a preference rating for mclaim equipment has come to tbe6+01‘~ attention.) Actually it remains to be determined whether increased reclaim manufacturing capacity is required. Any further restriction in the consumption of crude rubber below the 80 per cent base would perhapa 80 indicate, but this is not necea sarily the m. Curtailment of other materials and supplies, required by the rubber industry may bring about the . d t t h a t neither crude rubber nor reclaimed rubber
As h a s b e e n stated, the critical ratio of reclaimusageisin theneighborhood of 50 per cent crude 88 long 88 rubber restriction is held to the existing formula.
ScrapRubber Questions IVB aaked frequently
regarding the availability of sorap rubber for increasedre5laim production. The most recently One of the First Aniliw Phnu in the United Stcrtsr, Built by published d y Nmqmtuck Chsmicnl in 1914 sis of this subject is contsined in theU. 8.Departa_-_ id. in nthpr ine-tancea, notably ment of Commerce Industrial Reference Service forJanuary, 1941, Part 10, in articles subject to abrasion, as tire treads. Admittedly, the extent of ita u88 has been determined partly by economic conNo. 9. This analysis plua information from the Waste Mate rialsl Dealera Association indicate8 that in recent yema S C ~ P aideratiom. However, in the past in free commerce many articles have been made &noat entirely of redaim and many rubber has been produced at a mte 100 to 200 per cent in exoess of reclaim manufacturing capacity plus export requimenta. more of half or two thirds reclaim. Such products have given It has been estimated also that this exce88will continue for at eatisfactory service to the public. Moreover, in periods of least two years under war conditions. So far the reclsiming high rubber price when the use of reclaim has been increased
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November, 1941
I N D U S T R I A L A N D E N G I N d I N G CHEMISTRY
industry has found no lack of available raw material,and the reeent increases in prices paid for sorap are ascribed in no way to shortagebut rather to the current upward trend of all prices. It is suggested that W t e r rare by rubber manufactm in the sorting and collection of factory waste is sound economy, not only because of the increased monetary value of scrap rubber at the present time, but also because of the general desirabilty of oonwvation of all materials in the face of increasing requirements for defense. Particular attention is called to the importance of segregating typea of fadory wsste for better and more economical utilization in reclaiming. Artidea containing synthetic rubber should be specially and their c6srscter made known. Measurea are now being consided jointly by The Rubber Manufacturera Awociation and the Rubber Reclaimem Association for the nuitable marking of tirea containing synthetic rubber, inasmuch aa special treatment is r e q u i d in the reclsiming of synthetic rubber scrap. (The IndustriaI Reference Service mentioned above diacuased scrap rubber oonservation messurea in Germany in their November, 1940, issue.) In addition to scrap rubber and heavy equipment, other eaaentiala for rubber reclsiming must be considered in any m y of supply for defense. Caustic sods, required [or 200,OOO tons of reclaim, may amount to 16,WO or Z0,OOO tons, roughly 2 per cent of the 1940 caustic prcduction of the entire country. In pine tar and pine pmducta reclaim comes into direot competition with the material requirements of ship ping, eo W y needed at the present time. Reclaimed rubber manufdure r e q h the use of large quanti& of motive power for &em which are commonly electricdriven, the total for 1041 being of the order of SO,O&l to 100,OOO kilowatts continuously throughout the year. This is approximately aa much power aa is developed by one of the units of Tennesee Valley Authority at Boulder or by two of the tbrea units at Pickwick and H i w m .
osepaic Chemicals Attention has been called to the passibility that neither the volume of arude rubber available nor the amount of reOLSim will determine tbe volume of rubber goods to be manufactured in the months to come. The defense program amnot be completed without far-reaching e h t a on our economic and industrial structuras, and examplea of its impact are familiar to everyone. The rqirements of rubber manufaeturiq are by no m e w 6Ued by adequate suppliea of crude rubber, synthetic rubber, and reclaimed rubber done. Cotton might be mentioned and carbon black and a host of compounding ingredients. However, our sp+A attention is direded to the group of organic synthetics we call “rubber chemicals” and which we know are aa important to rubber manufacture aa are vitamias to animal growth. Thaee chemical requirementaare no0 known aa generally as are the requirements of our basic rubber materials. It is reaenuring to learn tbat a factual survey of the subject is now being conductad by the 05%of PMduction Management. Rubber waa introduced to the civilized world three hundred yesrs before Charlea Gwdyear but wag of dpractical use until that pioneer cbemist d i m v d the 6rst seoret of making rubber endure by d&tion. The rubber we 6nd eo d u l in war aa well aa in pescetime pursuits is vuloaoiaed rubber; particularly, it is rubber properly d a m ised, properly compounded, and p r o p l y preserved againat deterioration. Often it is forgotten that tires are six or eight or ten timea 88 enduring aa they were during the first World War and that a Bubstsntial part of this phenomenal improvmmt has been due to the do& of the rubber cbemist. Considered from the d e k e standpoint, not only has the chemist made posable the application of rubber to numeroue ueea in military equipment, but in addition, by making rubber endure, he
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I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENQINEERINQ CHEMXSTRY
1390
has made it possible for 1 ton to aerve where 2 tons migat have been required twenty-five yeamago. Therubber
restriction prognm now in &eat is Operating to (KrmB
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Vol 33, No. I1
(~ptobEIl8Othi8t&)
ismadefrom aniline plus carbon diaul6de, and fmm the Captax mole d e are obtained 68ver.d chemi4 derivatives bavingwideuse4880 celerstors. Diphenyl~dilleismsdefmun sllllineandogaaogrm doride. A long liutd accelerah is made by oondensing aniline with formaldehyde, aoetaldehyde, butyraldehyde, and heptaldehyde. Among the antioxidme are condeneation prodUda of acetone w i t h aniline and diphenylamine, which is mostly aniline. Phenyl+ naphthylamine and diphenyl-p-phenylenediamine start with aniline. Production 6gurw for the quantitien of most of the individd rubber chemicals are not published. Inthereportsof the T a d Commission tbetotslsfor d - t a r a n d noncoal-tar r u b b e r
per by reducing consumption. The oh& may olsim a saving three times that a m o u n h a y , 600,OOO t o w b y ~heanicsl impmvtnnanta which have d o u b l e d t h e life of rubber. Qreat recognition is due the rubber chermiat, but more to the point in the presemt situation is theimportanceofM material supplies re quired by him in order that he may aOnti4ue rubbermanufadwingon iteourrenthighplsneof q d t y . The CheQht has aooomplisned his great impmvanenb by studying the intridea of vulcsniaation, of aging, and of ffexing deterioration, and by ChemioalscouGW providing chemical antiduplimtionsof -with dotes for natural rubber their detivativea and also weaknesaes. Acwrdinclude rubber C h e m i d Alkali High-Pmaum Digestnr an a m#h Cnw in the ingly we come to the innonrubberuses. PerP l o o s s . of Irutalhdon at Naugatuck C h d important consideration hap a fair eatimatm of that the chemist muat o$c chemical usage have his acoeleratom and in rubber is 1.6 pounds antioxidant%and other speoisl chemicals if he ia to be exrncted of acaalerator and antioxidant together per 100 porn& of crude rubber employed-that is, 20 to 26 million pound8 in to convert natural, reblaimed,or synthetic rubber into atticlea of manufacture d d for the war msohine. each of the yeare 1939and 1940. The aniline reqUkd for this Omitting aarbon which is a subject by itself, the two deproduction ip between 12 and 17 million pounds, which is 30 menta most important in the M d af rubber c h e m i a are nito40percentoftheto~snilineproductionin1939. In1940 trogen and Sin& Nitrogen through aiwnonia and nitric acid the aniline production waa greater than in 1939; but since is required for aniline and other bases used in the manufacture crude rubber wnsumptiou WBB subtantidy the m e , it is of many rubber chemioals. Zinc is required as Bin0 oxide for presumed the 1940 aniline inmegse is due to munitions and activation and for 0 t h wmpounding purposes. other repuiementa. These data are presented to emphasize the dependence of Aniline rubber 1y1 w d as munitions on the supply of nitric acid, aniand other chemical raw materials. Aniline production bniline. the first of the lJ@c'deratam, was coming line, facilitiea in the united states have been and am being ininto commewial u88 at the time of the last war, Since aniline (mBs8Bd but are Btill Bonsidsred inudepuate for oombiaed inhad been imported from Germany and almost no productive dustry and defeme requirement%. Bemuse the defense re capacity for it existed in the United States, manufacturing quiremente are 80 large, a Bhortggein rubber ohemicals made facilities had to be provided. It may be that the needs of the from aniline should not come as a surprise. rubber industry rather than the needs of the dye industry brought about the bsginning in 1914 of the great orgSnio Zinc Oxide chemical development in this country. In 1914 aniline, ueed as a direct d e r a t o r of vulaunisaRecently the attention of the Oovernment has been called to the importance of Sin0 oxide in rubber compounding. For tion, WBB 80 important and ita manufacture BO new that it nome time zinc bas been oonsidered a stmtegio material besold for 1y1 much as Sl.aO per pound. Now MLW more aniline is short beosuse of the great demands of munitions, and muse of various increased Wea, &idly in the manufagain 48 in 1916 chemical equipment is dii3cdt to obtain. of brsee for munitions. The rubber t a a h d w.at considere A glanoe at any mtalog of rubber chemioals will indimte sinc ntrategio h u s e of the importance of sino oxide in the vuloani.ation of rubber. It is not unnstural that mme conthe bigh mwnta@made from aniline and therefore the imcern bas been felt regarding the adequacy of sin0 oxide e~pply portance of this chemical to the rubber industry. Captax
Noveubr, 1941
INDUSTRIAL
AqBi%k'&
Critical Needs for Rubber Chemicab Another chemiaal baw which it in not grmcrslly known in important to the r u b indwtry in formaldebyda Prioritim have been estebliehed fot varim uss (Fed. Reg. Aug. 6,1941, OPAW 1386.33) with ahe7niealin the lowest aka. The OrdQ ineluded f d d e h y d e , pfortnddehyde, and bexm&vi' The uy) of the hth'M 8 direct ade?at& is WEU known. It is atw an intamedisk in tbe manufaotwa of otber &ton. Foddehvde is required in the manufacture of dimportant rub& ohtmiods among which, in addition to lormaldehydeaniline, may be mentionad El-Sixty and BJF. Not long sgo my ettention WLUIadled to the disoontinuanae of manufactureof one important aocderator bemuse lolmaldehyde oontracted for WM d i d to another uy) having a priority ntanding. Formaldehyde an well ea anilina and dnc oxide &odd be ?ealgni.edMeasentialtorubbermnnufsoture. Rccantdy requests haw amre from the U. 8. Bureau of Ceosus lor bbuktimof 0sreqnircd in chemical manufMtUI8. mpnY &&&m d, it IIUy be m mulled that they arereeeiviqtatteation hMed the critiosl dhntion nvrolmdingmany matas. Eiowevu, the c a t 8 l ~ wbioh 00the rubber taphpatogistpra rubber accslemh. In rmmmt pubtiaatimthe btd of chor@€a armmonly etert with metas, Y duminum, antimw, c d m h u , atmaium, aobdt, WppEU, iridium, lead, imn,steel, magrdml, mmgan-
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1351
NG CHEMISTRY
hin company but to& industrgtoevaluate bis requkmenta and to make themhowr~and unThe priority msr ohitmy of the Govewmemt innteadily improving. Rubberin a r a w ddenw nwterid. Matpaials easrmtial to rubber manufactum aill be pmvidea in balance with rubber itadf luMnmasandonlyasaoonastheneedfortbembaa~ estsbliahed.
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Londnuon
Attention is aallal to the f a d that the title ofthis diasub
