Rubber from Butane

Dr. Gustav Egloff, ace researcher of Chicago's Universal Oil Products Co., last week revealed that he had devised a new way to make synthetic rubber from butane gas. Butane, used for heating, welding, motor fuel, is extremely plentiful and cheap. It is present in natural gas, is also a by-product in oil refining. Dr. Egloff estimates that from these sources 15 billion pounds of U. S. butane are available every year.

The butane molecule contains four atoms of carbon, ten of hydrogen. In the Egloff process, two atoms of hydrogen are first ripped out of the butane molecule at a temperature of 1,000DEG F. with the help of a catalyst (chemical activator). Then two more hydrogen atoms are torn out by repeating the same process. The molecule thus stripped is called butadiene gas. Another catalyst, and mild heat, then link up the molecule in long chains--and the tough, solid substance so formed is butadiene rubber.

Butadiene rubber itself is not new. It is the same in composition as the noisily touted German synthetic rubber called "Buna." But the German product is made from acetylene (a product of limestone and coal) in five complicated stages and its price is around 60-c- a pound. Inventor Egloff estimates that his butadiene rubber, if produced in any quantity, can be made to sell for less than 20-c- a pound. E. I.. du Pont de Nemours & Co.'s famed chlorine-containing synthetic rubber (TIME, May 6, 1935), now called "neoprene," is probably superior to butadiene rubber in some respects, but it costs from 65-c- to 78-c- a pound.

In automobile tires butadiene rubber has about three times the endurance of natural rubber. Therefore, at 20-c- a pound, it would be much cheaper, on a tire mileage basis than the 14-c- a pound at which natural para rubber is currently quoted. Dr. Egloff believes that U. S. commercial production of his butadiene rubber will get under way in less than a year.

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