Kondakov, Ivan Lavrentievich

(b. Vilyuisk, Yakutia, Russia [now Yakut A.S.S.R.], 8 October 1857; d. Elva, Estonia, 14 October 1931)

Chemistry.

Kondakov’s scientific activity began at St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated in 1884 Continuing the traditional research of Butlerov, Kondakov thoroughly studied the transformation of trimethylethylene, establishing the possibility of a transition to a diene hydrocarbon, difficult to obtain at that time:

This was the first step toward the synthesis of isoprene, and it determined all of Kondakov’s further creative work.

From 1886 to 1895 Kondakov worked at Warsaw University, systematically studying the syntheses of C₅ olefins and their transformations. From 1895 to 1918 he was professor at the University of Yurev (Tartu), where he continued his research, chiefly on the polymerization of unsaturated hydrocarbons. Kondakov’s main contribution was his discovery of a series of very important regularities followed by the processes of polymerization; it aided the development of modern methods for the industrial synthesis of rubber.

In 1900 and 1901 Kondakov concluded that it was possible to synthesize rubber on the basis not only of isoprene but also of other diene hydrocarbons, including butadiene and diisopropenyl. He showed that the latter could be polymerized in three ways: by the catalytic action of alcoholic alkali, by raising the temperature, and by the action of light. I 1901, through the potopolymerization of diisopropenyl, Kondakov obtained ruuber that was stable under the influence of hydrocarbon solvents. “We have here a product that undoubtedly must be accepted as the first known homologue of rubber. . . impervious to solvents and oils,” K. O. Weber wrote (Gummi Zeitung, B. 17 [1902], p. 207). These methods of polymerization of diisopropenyl provided the basis of the industrial production of synthetic “methyl rubber,” accomplished in 1915 in Germany.

Kondakov was one of the first to discover that metallic sodium can serve as a catalyst for the polymerization of dienes. He is to be credited with the development of methods for synthesizing spirits, ethers, acyl chlorides, and other difficult-to-obtain compounds that are bases of olefins by means of zinc chloride (1890-1895).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kondakov’s writings include “K voprosu o polimerizatsii etilenovykh uglevodorodov” (“On the Question Of the Polymerizations of Ethylene Hydrocarbons”), in Zhurnal Russkago fiziko-lkhimicheskago obshchestva . . ., 28 (1896), 784; “Ein bemerkenswerter Fall der Polimerisation des Dimethyl-2, 3-Butadien-1, 3,” in Journal für praktische Chemie, 64 (1901), 109; and Sintetichesky kauchuk, ego gomologii analogi (“Synthetic Rubber, Its Homologues and Analogues”; Yurev, 1912).

A secondary source is N. Y. Ryago, “Iz istorii khimicheskogo otdelenia Tartusskogo gosudarstvennogo universtieta” (“On the History of the Chemical Department of the Imperial University of Tartu”), Trudy Instituta istorii estestvoznania i tekhniki . . ., 12 (1956), 105-134.

V. I. Kuznetsov