SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



But lignin itself has won a toe hold in two other 

 markets. It's an axiom in the laboratories that if any 

 chemical product is available in quantity at a reason- 

 able price, some smart chemist will find a good use 

 for it. Several years ago, the West Virginia Pulp & 

 Paper Company, which for a long time has taken spe- 

 cial interest in lignin, concluded that it would be a 

 long step in the right direction to make this waste into 

 a uniform, thoroughly standardized product offered in 

 commercial quantities. In due course, they sent out 

 generous samples of brown, free-flowing powder, which 

 they trade-named "Indulin." But not content to let 

 their new product sell itself, Dr. Arthur Pollak, in charge 

 of the development laboratories at the Charleston plant, 

 went right ahead by the good, old cut-and-try method, 

 to find all and any possible uses for it. 



It happened that at the moment rubber compound- 

 ing was a topic of lively research. All the compounding 

 techniques of natural rubber had to be revamped to 

 suit the new synthetic rubbers. Carbon black, one big 

 secret of the long life of the prewar tire, had become 

 scarce and costly. Pollak found it was easy to enlist the 

 cooperation of rubber company chemists in hundreds 

 of experiments in which lignin was substituted for car- 

 bon black in proportions ranging all the way from one 

 to one hundred. The results astonished everyone. Not 

 only was the substitution successful, but indeed lignin 



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