Polymer science be considered polymer science in the modern sense. In the 1840s, Friedrich Ludersdorf and Nathaniel Hayward independently discovered that adding sulfur to raw natural rubber (polyisoprene) helped prevent the material from becoming sticky. In 1844 Charles Goodyear received a U.S. patent for vulcanizing natural rubber with sulfur and heat. Thomas Hancock had received a patent for the same process in the UK the year before. This process strengthened natural rubber and prevented it from melting with heat without losing flexibility. This made practical products such as waterproofed articles possible. It also facilitated practical manufacture of such rubberized materials. Vulcanized rubber
Polymer Corporation Polymer Corporation Polymer Corporation was a Canadian federal crown corporation established in 1942 to produce artificial rubber to substitute for overseas supply cut off by World War II. After the Japanese captured the Dutch East Indies in 1942, most of the world's supply of natural rubber was out of Allied hands. Due to the importance of rubber products for both modern life and modern warfare, the loss of such an important resource at this phase in the war was a crisis. A factory was established in Sarnia, Ontario, using German patents from an American licensee. Polymer produced approximately 3,300 tons