Generally assuming the form of a seal or gasket, nitrile rubber can be found in under-the-hood automotive and aerospace applications. It’s superior resistance to oil, grease and fuels deem it to be the preferred, and most effective, rubber in such applications. More importantly, nitrile sheet rubber exhibits stability through a wide range of temperatures, a great compression set and is very resistant to both tears and abrasion.

Like most elastomers, the development of nitrile sheet rubber, and specifically butadiene rubber, dates back as far as before World War I. In 1910, the Russian chemist Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev was the first to polymerize synthetic rubber using butadiene. This sparked the world’s interest in synthetic rubber. His process made extensive use of ethanol to create the synthetic rubber. Even though his initial products were not of the greatest quality, he was so successful in his refinements that throughout the 1920s and 40s, the Soviet Union made extensive use of his work to mass-produce this type of synthetic rubber. Shortly after Lebedev debuted his discovery, other industrialized nations started to take an interest in synthetic butadiene rubber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybutadiene).

When World War I broke out, the Allied and Central nations realized just how important rubber was to their war effort. Germany was hit particularly hard because it was blocked from many of the Allies’ exports, which included natural rubber. The Germans possessed the largest war machine on the European continent and required large amounts of natural rubber to keep their war effort going. Britain in particular made sure that their naval supply lines were as strained as possible. The stretchy substance was such a critical material in the German war effort that it prompted German chemists to begin researching to produce a synthetic replacement for natural rubber for the sake of being self-sufficient.

In 1929, still reeling from the economic devastation of the war, Germany finally succeeded in producing homegrown synthetic rubber. Two chemists from IG Farben, Walter Bock and Eduard Tschunkur finally synthesized a useable synthetic compound of styrene and butadiene, which they called Buna-S. A year later, riding high on the success of Buna-S, Tschunkur teamed up with another fellow German chemist, Erich Konrad, to synthesize another synthetic rubber using acrylonitrile and butadiene, calling it Buna-N (nitrile). The nitrile sheet rubber possessed physical traits similar to natural rubber but had a unique quality: oil-resistance. This new oil-resistant rubber was a game changer. The new buna material could now be used as an automotive component, namely, in the form of a seal or gasket. Nitrile rubber was eagerly embraced by German manufacturers as the answer to their lack of access to natural rubber. Nitrile products were destined to arouse the interest of the global community, particularly the United States

Four years after its initial development, Buna-N was being sold commercially. By then, the word of these new nitrile products spread to countries like Great Britain and the United States. In 1937, American rubber companies faced a shortage of oil-resistant rubber and responded by ordering samples of buna material from the German Buna-N producer, IG Farben. Thoroughly impressed by the elastomer, American rubber companies analyzed the samples and set out to produce their own butadiene rubber.

In 1939, World War II began. Warfare became much more mechanized than before, with automotives being used extensively in the form of jeeps, trucks, and tanks. Nitrile products were perfect for these applications because of their resistance to oil and grease. On a technological level, the use of nitrile sheet rubber in their vehicles allowed the Reich’s war machine to go further than it had ever gone before. Although buna material was originally developed for mainly mainstream uses, the German army quickly co-opted it for use in their war effort.

Following the onset of World War II, the US accelerated their synthetic rubber research program due to a desperate need of rubber for the war effort. Before the US ever engaged in hostilities with Germany, they had to contend with Japan in the Pacific. Japan was causing trouble for the US natural rubber supply by blockading trade routes and supply lines. Even though the US had a decent existing industry for oil-resistant rubber, efforts were accelerated to produce more of it and in larger quantities. In 1943, US rubber companies finally began to mass-produce nitrile sheet rubber, among with other elastomers, and the demand was met with an ever-increasing supply. Nitrile sheet rubber was a crucial material that aided in the conclusion to a hard-fought war. Today, buna material is used in many of the same applications that it was initially developed for. Chances are that nitrile products will be used for decades to come.