Join us at the Global Polymer Summit for a special symposium

Akron, OH – Join us at the Global Polymer Summit for a special symposium providing a review of influential papers from the Rubber Chemistry & Technology Journal.

Rubber Chemistry & Technology, the scientific journal of Rubber Division, ACS, has been a critical platform for sharing influential work with the rubber science community for many years. In this symposium, Editor Chris Robertson has assembled some of the most highly respected researchers in the world of rubber and soft materials to discuss groundbreaking papers from the pages of Rubber Chemistry & Technology and how those ideas continue to influence research today.

Presenters for this symposium will begin on Wednesday, September 10; 10:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Anil Bhowmick, University of Houston – Dr. Bhowmick gives observations on the work of Dr. Avrom Medalia whose work on electrical conductivity in carbon black filled rubber motivated his own research.

Will Mars, Endurica – Dr. Mars revisits a 1994 paper by Alan Gent, S.M. Lai, Changwoon Nah & Chi Wang whose work on “Viscoelastic Effects in Cutting and Tearing Rubber” provided strong early validation of a test method and theory that has since been widely adopted for studying long term durability in rubber.

Katrina Cornish, USDA Arid Land Agricultural Center – Dr. Cornish discusses the 1979 paper “Chemistry and Structure of Natural Rubbers” by T. Hager et al. which quantified and characterized rubber from the desert plant guayule and has guided post-harvest logistics and the development of new extraction processes and products in the years since.

Gregory McKenna, North Carolina State University – Dr. McKenna highlights early papers on the progress of rubber physics by Normal Bekkedahl and Lawrence Wood. These sources continue to influence laboratory work related to rubber crystallization in alternative rubber sources (guayule and dandelion rubber) including his own work with the new NSF Engineering Research Center “Transformation of American Rubber through Domestic Innovation for Supply Security: TARDISS”.

Lewis Tunnicliffe, Birla Carbon – Dr. Tunnicliffe reviews the work of Shingo Futamura who in 1991 introduced the Deformation Index concept as a method to optimize compound performance. This presentation will emphasize using this framework to interpret common test data and give contemporary examples of the framework in practice.

Click here for full meeting details: https://gps2025.events.rubber.org/events/technicalMeetingSchedule