Natural rubber

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Rubber)

Jump to navigationJump to search

"Rubber" and "India rubber" redirect here. For other uses, see Rubber (disambiguation).
This article is about the polymeric material "natural rubber". For man-made rubber materials,
see Synthetic rubber.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please

help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Natural
rubber" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September
2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Latex being collected from a tapped rubber tree, Cameroon

Rubber tree plantation in Thailand

Natural rubber, also called by other names of India rubber, latex, Amazonian
rubber, caucho or caoutchouc, as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic
compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds, plus
water. Thailand and Indonesia are two of the leading rubber producers. Forms
of polyisoprene that are used as natural rubbers are classified as elastomers.
Currently, rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from the rubber tree or others. The
latex is a sticky, milky colloid drawn off by making incisions in the bark and collecting the fluid in
vessels in a process called "tapping". The latex then is refined into rubber that is ready for
commercial processing. In major areas, latex is allowed to coagulate in the collection cup. The
coagulated lumps are collected and processed into dry forms for marketing.
Natural rubber is used extensively in many applications and products, either alone or in
combination with other materials. In most of its useful forms, it has a large stretch ratio and
high resilience, and is extremely waterproof.[1]

Contents

 1Varieties
o 1.1Hevea brasiliensis
o 1.2Congo rubber
 o 1.3Dandelion
o 1.4Other
 2History
o 2.1Pre–World War II
 3Properties
o 3.1Elasticity
o 3.2Malodour
 4Chemical makeup
o 4.1Biosynthesis
 5Production
o 5.1Cultivation
o 5.2Collection
o 5.3Processing
o 5.4Vulcanized rubber
o 5.5Transportation
 6Uses
 7Allergic reactions
 8Microbial degradation
 9See also
 10References
o 10.1Citations
o 10.2Sources
 11Further reading
 12External links

Varieties[edit]
Hevea brasiliensis[edit]
The major commercial source of natural rubber latex is the Amazonian rubber tree (Hevea
brasiliensis), a member of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. This species is preferred because it
grows well under cultivation. A properly managed tree responds to wounding by producing more
latex for several years.
Congo rubber[edit]
Congo rubber, formerly a major source of rubber, came from vines in the genus Landolphia (L.
kirkii, L. heudelotis, and L. owariensis).[2]
Dandelion[edit]
Dandelion milk contains latex. The latex exhibits the same quality as the natural rubber
from rubber trees. In the wild types of dandelion, latex content is low and varies greatly. In Nazi
Germany, research projects tried to use dandelions as a base for rubber production, but
failed.[3] In 2013, by inhibiting one key enzyme and using modern cultivation methods and
optimization techniques, scientists in the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied
Ecology (IME) in Germany developed a cultivar that is suitable for commercial production of
natural rubber.[4] In collaboration with Continental Tires, IME began a pilot facility.
Other[edit]
Many other plants produce forms of latex rich in isoprene polymers, though not all produce
usable forms of polymer as easily as the Pará.[5] Some of them require more elaborate
processing to produce anything like usable rubber, and most are more difficult to tap. Some
produce other desirable materials, for example gutta-percha (Palaquium
gutta)[6] and chicle from Manilkara species. Others that have been commercially exploited, or at
least showed promise as rubber sources, include the rubber fig (Ficus elastica), Panama rubber
tree (Castilla elastica), various spurges (Euphorbia spp.), lettuce (Lactuca species), the
related Scorzonera tau-saghyz, various Taraxacum species, including common dandelion
(Taraxacum officinale) and Russian dandelion (Taraxacum kok-saghyz), and perhaps most
importantly for its hypoallergenic properties, guayule (Parthenium argentatum). The term gum
rubber is sometimes applied to the tree-obtained version of natural rubber in order to distinguish
it from the synthetic version.[1]

History[edit]
The first use of rubber was by the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica. The earliest
archeological evidence of the use of natural latex from the Hevea tree comes from
the Olmec culture, in which rubber was first used for making balls for the Mesoamerican
ballgame. Rubber was later used by the Maya and Aztec cultures – in addition to making balls
Aztecs used rubber for other purposes such as making containers and to make textiles
waterproof by impregnating them with the latex sap.[7][8]
Charles Marie de La Condamine is credited with introducing samples of rubber to the Académie
Royale des Sciences of France in 1736.[9] In 1751, he presented a paper by François
Fresneau to the Académie (published in 1755) that described many of rubber's properties. This
has been referred to as the first scientific paper on rubber.[9] In England, Joseph Priestley, in
1770, observed that a piece of the material was extremely good for rubbing off pencil marks on
paper, hence the name "rubber". It slowly made its way around England. In 1764 François
Fresnau discovered that turpentine was a rubber solvent. Giovanni Fabbroni is credited with the
discovery of naphtha as a rubber solvent in 1779.
South America remained the main source of latex rubber used during much of the 19th century.
The rubber trade was heavily controlled by business interests but no laws expressly prohibited
the export of seeds or plants. In 1876, Henry Wickham smuggled 70,000 Amazonian rubber tree
seeds from Brazil and delivered them to Kew Gardens, England. Only 2,400 of these germinated.
Seedlings were then sent to India, British Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Dutch East
Indies (Indonesia), Singapore, and British Malaya. Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia) was later
to become the biggest producer of rubber.[10]
In the early 1900s, the Congo Free State in Africa was also a significant source of natural rubber
latex, mostly gathered by forced labor. King Leopold II's colonial state brutally enforced
production quotas. Tactics to enforce the rubber quotas included removing the hands of victims
to prove they had been killed. Soldiers often came back from raids with baskets full of chopped-
off hands. Villages that resisted were razed to encourage better compliance locally.
See Atrocities in the Congo Free State for more information on the rubber trade in the Congo
Free State in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In India, commercial cultivation was introduced by British planters, although the experimental
efforts to grow rubber on a commercial scale were initiated as early as 1873 at
the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. The first commercial Hevea plantations were established at
Thattekadu in Kerala in 1902. In later years the plantation expanded to Karnataka, Tamil
Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. India today is the world's 3rd largest
producer and 4th largest consumer.[11]
In Singapore and Malaya, commercial production was heavily promoted by Sir Henry Nicholas
Ridley, who served as the first Scientific Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens from 1888 to
1911. He distributed rubber seeds to many planters and developed the first technique for tapping
trees for latex without causing serious harm to the tree.[12] Because of his fervent promotion of
this crop, he is popularly remembered by the nickname "Mad Ridley".[13]