532 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[Jfi 



A College Course in Caoutchouc. 



THE growtli ami develniiment of the city of Akron has been 

 due ahiiost entirely to the strides made by the rubber in- 

 dustry. The great demand made by the factories of the city 

 for college men. and the eyident superiority of young men with 

 theoretical knowledge and practical experience with rubber, were 

 the incentives which caused the introduction of a course in the 

 chemistry of rubber by the Municipal University of Akron. 



The chemistry of rubber is still in its infancy, due to the 

 nature of the hydrocarbon to be dealt with, and also to the 

 comparative youth of the industry. Owing to the rapid de- 

 velopment of the manufacture of all kinds of rubljcr articles, the 



Miniature Washers and Mixers. 



ingenuity of chemists has been taxed to develop processes, and 

 to iind adequate methods of, control, both;-ef; the -raw material 

 and the finished products'. The varied nature of the raw ma- 

 terials used in the manufacture of rubber broadens the scope 

 of a chemist employed in this work to such an extent that there 

 is hardly a branch of his profession which is not touched at 

 one time or another. 



This course at Akron is an advanced one, and to be taken 

 only by men who have already had training in chemistry. The 

 requirements for entrance are one year of general inorganic 

 chemistry, one year of qualitative analysis, one year of quan- 

 titative analysis, and one year of organic chemistry. Men with 

 such preliminary training should be in a position to fully com- 

 prehend the theories and understand the methods used in the 

 analysis and., manufacture of rubber. 



The curriculum consists of lectures, conferences and laboratory 

 work. The results of experiments which have been made to 

 advance the theoretical knowledge in connection with the chem- 

 istry of rubber, from the latex to the vulcanized product, have 

 been collected from different sources and are given to the stu- 

 dent in the lectures. Their value and application are discussed 

 fully, and, as far as possible, the development of the individual 

 theories traced and applied, to other branches of chemistry. The 

 conferences consist in recitation work on subjects for which the 

 student has been required to prepare himself by consulting vari- 

 ous books and journals. 



In the study of raw rubber, the botanical origin, the nature 

 of the latex, its method of collection and coagulation, are taken 

 up in the lectures. The different grades of raw rubber on the 

 market are studied with the aid of samples. These are used for 

 lecture work, and also for practical chemical analysis in the 

 laboratory, where the student carries out the methods as used in 

 the technical laboratories. To get acquainted with the practical 

 factory side of the manipulation of crude rubber, the student is 

 given a sample to prepare for use in compounding. Besides 

 going through the general analysis, he washes the rubber on the 



expermiental washing mill and. after drying, calculates the loss 

 due to washing and, frnm that, the cost of the rubber to the 

 manufacturers. 



Besides taking up the general nature of the pigments, fillers, 

 diluents and the well-known accelerators, a study of their chem- 

 ical properties and methods of manufacture is gone into. If 

 they are obtained as by-products in some other industry, these 

 industries are reviewed as far as the time allows. The gen- 

 eral methods of analysis for factory control are discussed, and 

 carried out in the laboratory with samples which will later be 

 used in actual compounding. Emphasis is placed upon the great 

 value of the relation between the specific gravity of a substance 

 and its cost per pound. 



The methods of analysis of vulcanized rubber as used today 

 are fully discussed and carried out in the laboratory. Thus the 

 student becomes acquainted with the various forms of apparatus 

 used in the analysis, and also gets a working knowledge of such 

 methods as give comparatively good results. 



The theories ori'^ compounding and vulcanizing of rubber are 

 taken up m lecture and conference work. In the laboratory 

 the student carries out these processes from a practical factory 

 point of view. The rubber laboratory is equipped with modern 

 standard mixing mills, a vulcanizing press, a steam vulcanizer 

 heated by a smaller boiler, which can be regulated to any practical 

 vulcanizing temperature desired, and a tensile testing machine. 

 As the cost of a compound, together with its specific gravity, is a 

 most essential factor in rubber manufacture, the method of cal- 

 culation from the cost and specific gravity of the raw materials 

 is gone into and the importance discussed. 



The student first makes up simple standard compounds, vul- 

 canizes them, and, after getting the tensile strength, calculates 





Mi 



lATURE PrES 



AND VULCA> 



the volume cost from the raw products used. A check is ob- 

 tained by determining the specific gravity of the finished product. 

 After he is familiar with the manipulation of the rubber com- 

 pounding he is given problems in making up formulae having 

 given properties and given volume costs. By actual compound- 

 ing and vulcanizing, the practicability of the formulae is de- 

 termined. In this way he becomes familiar with practical factory 

 problems. 



During the year, liy courtesy of the Akron rubber manufac- 

 turers, the students inspect all of the larger factories in the city 

 where the processes, which cannot be carried out in a small 



