Siegfried Wolff
Siegfried Wolff is a now-retired Degussa chemist noted for first recognizing the potential of using silica in tire treads to reduce rolling resistance.
Wolff started his career at Degussa in 1953 as a student apprentice, later moving into research and development of carbon black.
In the 1960s Wolff investigated the mechanisms of rubber reinforcement by fillers. He introduced new parameters for characterizing furnace black and silica, enabling improved quantification of the contribution of filler structure and surface area to rubber properties.
In addition, Wolff studied vulcanization systems using organosilanes and triazine-based chemicals.
Wolff originated the development of all-silica tire tread compounds. He first disclosed this use of silica to achieve low rolling resistance in papers presented in 1984 at the Tire Society meeting in Akron, Ohio.
Eventually, Wolff rose to the head of the department of applied research for fillers and rubber chemicals.
william B.wiegand
William B. Wiegand was a vice president of Columbian Carbon Co., known for his pioneering work on carbon black technology. Wiegand studied carbon black’s reinforcing effect on rubber, and proposed that the effect arises due to forces acting at the interface between the carbon black and the surrounding elastomer matrix. He was a pioneer in developing the furnace method for producing carbon black.Wiegand was the 1923 ACS rubber division chair.He received the Colwyn medal in 1956 and the Charles Goodyear Medal in 1960.
Jean-Baptiste Donnet
Jean-Baptiste Donnet (28 September 1923 in Pontgibaud (Puy-de-Dôme) – 30 November 2014 in Sentheim (Haut-Rhin)) was a French chemist who is noted as a pioneer in the surface chemistry of carbon black and as a founder of the Upper Alsace University.
Jean-Baptiste Donnet, from a modest background, received his secondary education by correspondence, while an apprentice craftsman. After World War II, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering.
His scientific career began in CNRS at Strasbourg, then Mulhouse from 1953. He is one of the founders in 1970 of the academic center of Mulhouse, which in 1975 became the University of Haute-Alsace.