Sulfur vulcanization in the processing and compounding of rubber by Hancock and his colleagues led to a more reliable process. Around 1900, disulfiram was introduced as a vulcanizing agent, and became widely used. In 1905 George Oenslager discovered that a derivative of aniline called thiocarbanilide accelerated the reaction of sulfur with rubber, leading to shorter cure times and reducing energy consumption. This breakthrough was almost as fundamental to the rubber industry as Goodyear's sulfur cure. Accelerators made the cure process faster, improved the reliability of the process and enabled vulcanization to be applied to synthetic polymers. One year after his discovery, Oenslager
Natural rubber using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography (GC) indicates that they contain sulphur, ammonia, alkenes, ketones, esters, hydrogen sulphite, nitrogen, and low molecular weight fatty acids (C2-C5). When latex concentrate is produced from rubber, sulphuric acid is used for coagulation. This produces malodourous hydrogen sulphide. The industry can mitigate these bad odours with scrubber systems. Latex is the polymer cis-1,4-polyisoprene – with a molecular weight of 100,000 to 1,000,000 daltons. Typically, a small percentage (up to 5% of dry mass) of other materials, such as proteins, fatty acids, resins, and inorganic materials (salts) are found in natural rubber. Polyisoprene