Polymer science be considered polymer science in the modern sense. In the 1840s, Friedrich Ludersdorf and Nathaniel Hayward independently discovered that adding sulfur to raw natural rubber (polyisoprene) helped prevent the material from becoming sticky. In 1844 Charles Goodyear received a U.S. patent for vulcanizing natural rubber with sulfur and heat. Thomas Hancock had received a patent for the same process in the UK the year before. This process strengthened natural rubber and prevented it from melting with heat without losing flexibility. This made practical products such as waterproofed articles possible. It also facilitated practical manufacture of such rubberized materials. Vulcanized rubber
Sulphur, Louisiana Sulphur, Louisiana Sulphur () is a city in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 20,410 at the 2010 census. Sulphur is part of the Lake Charles Metropolitan Statistical Area. Sulphur is named for the sulfur mines that were operated in the area in the 1900s. In 1867, Professor Eugene W. Hilgard, an experienced geologist who was prospecting for oil and other minerals, conducted exploratory borings in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana and discovered sulfur in the caprock of a salt dome. However, the sulfur was beneath several hundred feet of muck and quicksand containing deadly hydrogen sulfide gas, which made