Rubber technology thickness. Rubber may then be extruded or molded before being cured. Rubber technology Rubber Technology is the subject dealing with the transformation of rubbers or elastomers into useful products, such as automobile tires, rubber mats and, exercise rubber stretching bands. The materials includes latex, natural rubber, synthetic rubber and other polymeric materials, such as thermoplastic elastomers. Rubber processed through such methods are components of a wide range of items. Most rubber products are vulcanized, a process which involves heating with a small quantity of sulphur (or equivalent cross-linking agent) so as to stabilise the polymer chains, over a wide range
Rubber elasticity Joule published the first careful measurements of the temperature increase accompanying extension, confirming the theoretical predictions of Lord Kelvin. It was not until 1838 that the American inventor Charles Goodyear found that its properties could be immensely improved by adding a few percent sulphur. The short sulfur chains produced chemical cross-links. Before it is cross-linked, the liquid natural rubber consists of very long linear chains, containing thousands of isoprene backbone units, connected head-to-tail. Every chain follows a random path through the liquid and is in contact with thousands of other nearby chains. When heated, a cross-linker molecule (such as sulfur