Owen Webster

Who is Owen Webster?

Owen W. Webster is a distinguished member of the organic and polymer chemistry communities. His polymerization technique for making block copolymer dispersing agents is used by DuPont to make ink-jet printer inks.

Born in Devils Lake, North Dakota, Webster received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Dakota in 1951. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1955 under the direction of L. H. Sommer, known for his silicon mechanistic work. After graduation, Webster joined the Central Research Department of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company at the Experimental Station, where he spent his entire industrial career. He is presently Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at both the University of Alabama and the University of Pennsylvania.

Webster’s early research activities at du Pont involved synthesis of cyanocarbons. His seminal discoveries in this area ranged from tetracyanoethylene oxide, which adds to olefins through its carbon-carbon bond; hexacyanobutadiene, with an oxidation potential near that of bromine; pentacyanocyclopentadiene, an acid as strong as perchloric acid; diiminosuccinonitrile, a remarkable adduct of cyanogen and hydrogen cyanide; and diazodicyanoimidazole, which cleaves to a carbene that forms a bromo ylide with bromobenzene. In other organic research he showed that diazonium compounds undergo 2+4 cycloaddition to dienes.