Polybutadiene
Polybutadiene [butadiene rubber BR] is a synthetic rubber. Polybutadiene rubber is a polymer formed from the polymerization of the monomer 1,3-butadiene. Polybutadiene has a high resistance to wear and is used especially in the manufacture of tires, which consumes about 70% of the production. Another 25% is used as an additive to improve the toughness (impact resistance) of plastics such as polystyrene and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). Polybutadiene rubber accounted for about a quarter of total global consumption of synthetic rubbers in 2012.[1] It is also used to manufacture golf balls, various elastic objects and to coat or encapsulate electronic assemblies, offering high electrical resistivity.[2]
Buna rubber is a term used to describe an early generation of synthetic polybutadiene rubber produced in Germany by Bayer using sodium as a catalyst.
The Russian chemist Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev was the first to polymerize butadiene in 1910.[3][4] In 1926 he invented a process for manufacturing butadiene from ethanol, and in 1928, developed a method for producing polybutadiene using sodium as a catalyst.
The government of the Soviet Union strived to use polybutadiene as an alternative to natural rubber and built the first pilot plant in 1930,[5] using ethanol produced from potatoes. The experiment was a success and in 1936 the Soviet Union built the world's first polybutadiene plant in which the butadiene was obtained from petroleum. By 1940, the Soviet Union was by far the largest producer of polybutadiene with 50,000 tons per year.[6]
Following Lebedev's work, other industrialized countries such as Germany and the United States developed polybutadiene and SBR as an alternative to natural rubber.
In the mid-1950s there were major advances in the field of catalysts that led to the development of an improved versions of polybutadiene. The leading manufacturers of tires and some petrochemical companies began to build polybutadiene plants on all continents; the boom lasted until the 1973 oil crisis. Since then, the growth rate of the production has been more modest, focused mainly to the Far East.
