ABSTRACT
Polymer formulation with additives appears to have begun 4000 years ago with use of metal carboxylates, in the form of wood ash, as lubricants for naturally occurring or derived lipids used to coat chariot axles [1, p. 2]. A dramatization of this event has recently been reconstructed [2]. Despite this long history of empirical lubricant usage, the absence of an underlying rationale should not be assumed. Quite the contrary, it now seems that considerations of polarity and mobility can be used to predict lubricant behavior in a variety of polymeric environments. One possible approach will be presented in Section III.
