NEW USE FOR SOAP

Evening Star, Issue 25226, 13 July 1944, Page 9

NEW USE FOR SOAP

ESSENTIAL IN SYNTHETIC RUBBER ~ PRODUCTION Little is known of the extent to which soap is used in many industries, apart from keeping hands, face, and clothes clean.

Soap is an actual aid—in fact, an essential in many industrial processes. America's huge war synthetic rubber programme, which calls for the annual production of more .than 800,000 tons of man-made rubber, most of which will be used for the making of tyres for the automobiles, aircraft, and mechanised units of the United Nations, could not go through unless a huge supply of soap is made available to the American processors of butadiene, styrene, and other ingredients of synthetic rubber, says the ' Duulop iliulletin.' All told, 190.000.0001 bof soap fats have been allotted in the United States for industrial processes in that country for the current year, and of that huge poundage. 100.000,0001 b will he needed for the production of synthetic rubber in the United States this year. About l-18th of a lb. of soap is used in making one pound of " Buna B."—the synthetic most _ suitable for making motor tyres—while the synthetic rubber in the tyres and spares for an 8-wheeled 2-|-ton army truck takes 311 bof soap. In the synthetic rubber materials in a medium 28-ton tank, 1051 b of soap are required. It will be realised from the foregoing that any serious shortage of soap fats in the United States would acutely affect America's production of synthetic rubber, upon which Great Britain and Australasia will soon be depending for the making of tyres and other rubber products essential to the war effort and industry.