From "CSIRO research for Australia" (1962) pdf page 58:
"The main centre of chemical research is at Fishermen's Bend, Victoria, where C.S.I.R.O. has established its Chemical Research Laboratories. The Laboratories were formed in 1940, following the report of a committee which recommended the expansion of C.S.I.R. research into fields of importance to secondary industry. The group was originally called the Division of Industrial Chemistry, but was re-organized in 1958 and styled the Chemical Research Laboratories, with Divisions of Chemical Physics, Mineral Chemistry, Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, together with Sections of Cement and Refractories and Chemical Engineering. There are also two smaller groups which offer useful services to industry; these are a Microanalytical Laboratory situated at the University of Melbourne, which performs analyses of organic compounds for government, university and industrial laboratories, and, situated at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, a Foundry Sands Laboratory which offers an advisory service to foundries. The interests of the Laboratories have not been limited to fields of importance to secondary industry; much of the work bears directly on primary industry.

The research activities of the Division of Industrial Chemistry began in a few rooms of the Chemistry department of the University of Melbourne. The first Chief was Dr. I. W. Wark (now a member of the C.S.I.R.O. Executive), a physical chemist noted for his important contributions to our knowledge of the separation of minerals from ores by "flotation" processes.

The Division moved into its own new premises in 1941. During the war years much of the Division's time was spent on the immediate problems imposed by the war, but a number of lines of fundamental work were established and these were carried on and expanded after 1945. It was necessary to study means of extracting uncommon metal derivatives from our minerals. Titanium tetrachloride, for example, was needed for smokescreens and cerium oxide was needed as a polishing powder for optical lenses. The Division worked on a host of chemical problems, including the construction of laminated aircraft propellers, prevention of "crazing" of plastic aircraft windows, concentration and drying of foodstuffs, the preservation of leather boots in hot and humid climates, and many more.

When the war was over, the Division settled down to develop the lines of fundamental work established during the war, and to start new lines of work."