Isoprene and Rubber. XVII. The Fractionation of Balata

Abstract

Abstract On the basis of earlier experiments with synthetic materials, compounds of high molecular weight are not composed of a single substance, but consist of a mixture of homologous polymers. The individual members of a polymeric homologous series differ very little in physical and chemical properties, and therefore a mixture of polymeric homologous products such as is obtained in the polymerization of the monomer cannot as a rule be decomposed into simple compounds by means of solvents, but merely into mixtures of products of low and high molecular weight. Such separations have been carried out, for example, in the case of polyvinylace-tates, polystyrols, polyindenes, polyanetholes, and polyethyleneoxides. On the basis of these experiments it was assumed that natural products of high molecular weight likewise consist of a mixture of polymeric homologs. Thus purified rubber, for example, according to our views is not such a completely homogeneous hydrocarbon that all the molecules have the same length, but consists of a mixture of perhaps 100 or more polymeric homologs. Pummerer's decomposition of rubber into sol,- and gel-rubber, according to our experiments, is due to the fact that rubber consists of easily soluble polyprenes and difficultly soluble polyprenes, all belonging to the same polymeric homologous series. Of course there is the possibility that, in forming compounds of high molecular weight, nature produced primary molecules of uniform size, and that the mixture of polymeric homologs was formed only later through decomposition. In that case the natural products would differ in constitution from the synthetic material. They would not be polymerically uniform but completely uniform compounds in the sense of classical organic chemistry. The fact that in life processes methods are possible which we cannot realize in the laboratory is well known. Such a finding would not, of course, contradict our former view that natural products, such as rubber and balata, are of high molecular weight in the sense of classical structural chemistry. Our former work has indicated a similar structure for rubber and gutta-percha. Here it is simply a question whether or not the macromolecules of these natural products have a uniform length. In order to reach a decision, we first of all investigated balata, since it is prepared pure more easily than rubber. It was made from balata latex which was supplied to us through the courtesy of the management of the Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke, Nordenham." The balata thus obtained is a flocculent, cellulose-like mass, which looks like gutta-percha and crystallizes like it.