How Rubber Works

How Rubber Works
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Rubber

Kiersten Aschauer, HowStuffWorks.com

Take a quick look around you. Chances are you're surrounded by plenty of things made of rubber, from your mouse pad to that pile of rubber bands on your desk. And you probably drove to work or rode transit via a vehicle with tires. It’s true: Rubber is everywhere, part of our everyday lives and a huge component of the global economy.

rubber

Where Rubber Comes From
More than 90 percent of world’s natural rubber supply comes from Southeast Asia -- specifically from the bark of the Hevea brasiliensis tree. The trees are tapped to retrieve the liquid form of rubber: latex. About 70 percent of the rubber used today is synthetic and derived from crude oil, or petroleum.

What Makes Rubber, Rubber
The property that makes rubber so unique? Its ability to stay elastic. It was Charles Goodyear who discovered that heating latex with sulfur -- a process called vulcanizing -- makes rubber retain its elasticity, even when temperatures vary greatly. Goodyear went on to employ this technology in his tire empire.

What Rubber Begat
Shoes, hoses, erasers, gaskets, rubber duckies, rubber bullets, rubber gloves, rubber bands, condoms … shall we go on?

The Surprising Thing About Rubber
The U.S. Post Office is one of the largest consumers of rubber bands in the world, ordering millions of pounds each year to sort and pile mail.

The Jetsons and Robotic Rubber
In fact, the Jetsons would probably use rubber in a high-tech capacity. Companies all over the world are looking to synthetic rubber for everything from military robots and medical devices to high-end outdoor equipment.