Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev

Sergei Vasilievich Lebedev (; 13 July 1874 – 2 May 1934) was a Russian and Soviet chemist and the inventor of polybutadiene synthetic rubber, the first commercially viable and mass-produced type of synthetic rubber. He attended school in Warsaw. In 1900, he graduated from St. Petersburg University and found work at the Petersburg Margarine Factory.

Starting in 1902, Lebedev moved from university to university in Russia, starting at the Saint-Petersburg Institute for Railroad Engineering. In 1904, he returned to St. Petersburg University to work under Alexey Favorsky (Stalin Prize, 1941, for contributions to the manufacture of synthetic rubber).

In 1905, he married his second wife, the artist Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva.

In 1915, Lebedev was appointed Professor at the Women's Pedagogical Institute in St. Petersburg. After 1916, he was a Professor of the Saint Petersburg Academy for Military Medicine. In 1925, he became the leader of the Oil Laboratory (after 1928, the Laboratory of Synthetic Resins) at St. Petersburg University.

He died on 2 May 1934, aged 59, in Leningrad, and is interred in Tikhvin Cemetery.

Another important contribution of Lebedev's was the study of the kinetics of hydrogenation of ethylene hydrocarbons and the development of a number of synthetic motor oils for aircraft engines.

Honors In 1931, Lebedev was awarded the Order of Lenin for his work on synthetic rubber In 1932, he became a full member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1945 the National Institute for Synthetic Rubber was named "Lebedev's Institute".