Ira Williams (1894–1977[1]) was an American chemist at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in New Jersey, who in the summer of 1930,[2] together with Wallace Carothers, Arnold Collins and F. B. Downing, made commercial Neoprene possible[3] by producing a soft, plastic form of chloroprene that could be processed by the rubber industry.[4][5] Early accounts of the development credited Julius Nieuwland with synthesizing the precursor divinylacetylene.[6] Williams' contribution was the discovery that the rheological behavior of the product could be controlled by quenching the polymerization reaction with alcohol.

He won the 1946 Charles Goodyear Medal.

References

  1. ↑ Patterson, Gary (2014). Polymer Science from 1935-1953: Consolidating the Paradigm. Springer. p. 28. ISBN 9783662435366.
  2. ↑ Smith, John K. (1985). "Ten-Year Invention: Neoprene and Du Pont Research, 1930–1939". Technology and Culture. 26 (1): 34–55. doi:10.2307/3104528.
  3. ↑ McHugh, F. D. (January 1932). "New Commercial Synthetic Rubber". The Scientific American Digest. No. 146(1). Nature America, Inc. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  4. ↑ Hounshell, David A.; Smith, John Kenly (1988). Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R and D, 1902-1980. Cambridge University Press. p. 251. ISBN 9780521327671.
  5. ↑ Wallace H. Carothers, Ira Williams, Arnold M. Collins, and James E. Kirby (1937). "Acetylene Polymers and their Derivatives. II. A New Synthetic Rubber: Chloroprene and its Polymers". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 53 (11): 4203–4225. doi:10.1021/ja01362a042.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ "Duprene". TIME Magazine. No. 18(20). TIME USA, LLC. 16 November 1931. Retrieved 6 January 2024.


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