Organic chemistry
Since the invention of the first synthetic polymer product, bakelite, synthetic polymer products have frequently been invented.
Emulsion polymerization
The first "true" emulsion polymerizations, which used a surface-active agent and polymerization initiator, were conducted in the 1920s to polymerize isoprene. Over the next twenty years, through the end of World War II, efficient methods for production of several forms of synthetic rubber by emulsion polymerization were developed, but relatively few publications in the scientific literature appeared: most disclosures were confined to patents or were kept secret due to wartime needs.