J.C. Patrick Father of American Synthetic Elastomers

Abstract

While he was not a chemist, Dr. Joseph Cecil Patrick invented America’s first synthetic rubber in the early 1920’s when few scientists recognized the existence of polymers. Unlike his contemporaries, he didn’t discard the brown insoluble gum that was produced when he attempted to hydrolyze ethylene dichloride with sodium polysulfide. He named this product Thiokol after the greek words for sulfur and gum. He solved commercial production problems by inventing the suspension polymerization process and solved the compounding problems by degrading the high molecular weight polymer to a low molecular weight liquid polymer. The latter is now the principal binder for solid propellants.