Chemistry and Basic Intermediates

Abstract

The historical discovery of the class of polymers now generally called urethanes or polyurethanes has been documented in a number of standard works on this subject (Saunders & Frisch, 1962; Wright & Cumming, 1969). The original discovery leading to the world-wide interest in all classes of urethanes was made by Otto Bayer and his co-workers of I.G. Farbenindustrie at Leverkusen, Germany in 1937 as a competitive response to the work by Carothers of Du Pont, USA, on the polyamides or nylons. In ensuing years the urethane polymer-forming system has received intensive attention resulting in the syntheses of many specialized forms, in particular plastics and rubbers in solid and cellular form, surface coatings, adhesives and fibres. The range of end-products derived from polyurethanes is shown in Fig. 1.1, which illustrates the molecular structure features used to produce such diverse polymer forms, some fibre-or film-forming, some thermoplastic or thermosetting and others elastomeric.