Ira Williams

{{Short description|American chemist}}

Ira Williams (1894–1977{{cite book|last1=Patterson|first1=Gary|title=Polymer Science from 1935-1953: Consolidating the Paradigm|date=2014|publisher=Springer|isbn=9783662435366|page=28}}) was an American chemist at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in New Jersey, who in the summer of 1930,{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=John K. |title=Ten-Year Invention: Neoprene and Du Pont Research, 1930–1939 |journal=Technology and Culture |date=1985 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=34–55 |doi=10.2307/3104528|jstor=3104528 |s2cid=113234844 }} together with Wallace Carothers, Arnold Collins and F. B. Downing, made commercial Neoprene possible{{cite news |last1=McHugh |first1=F. D. |title=New Commercial Synthetic Rubber |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24965828 |access-date=7 January 2024 |work=The Scientific American Digest |issue=1 |publisher=Nature America, Inc. |date=January 1932|volume=146 |jstor=24965828 }} by producing a soft, plastic form of chloroprene that could be processed by the rubber industry.{{cite book|last1=Hounshell|first1=David A.|last2=Smith|first2=John Kenly|title=Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R and D, 1902-1980|date=1988|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521327671|page=[https://archive.org/details/sciencecorporate0008houn/page/251 251]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/sciencecorporate0008houn/page/251}}{{cite journal | author = Wallace H. Carothers, Ira Williams, Arnold M. Collins, and James E. Kirby | title = Acetylene Polymers and their Derivatives. II. A New Synthetic Rubber: Chloroprene and its Polymers | journal = J. Am. Chem. Soc. | year = 1937 | volume = 53 | pages = 4203–4225 | doi = 10.1021/ja01362a042 | issue = 11}} Early accounts of the development credited Julius Nieuwland with synthesizing the precursor divinylacetylene.{{cite news |title=Duprene |url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=54795357&site=eds-live&scope=site |access-date=6 January 2024 |work=TIME Magazine |issue=20 |publisher=TIME USA, LLC |date=16 November 1931| volume=18 }} Williams' contribution was the discovery that the rheological behavior of the product could be controlled by quenching the polymerization reaction with alcohol.

He won the 1946 Charles Goodyear Medal.