What is Rubber?
Rubber is a fiber obtained from plant sap. Natural rubber is made from the sap of trees. Synthetic rubber is produced by the chemical industry from oil. Both types are versatile materials. It is grown in Brazil, Ceylon, Mexico, Java Island, Central and East Africa. For hundreds of years, natural rubber has been obtained by making cuts on the rubber tree to collect the sap that flows in the form of milk, allowing this sap to dry and harden, and then using various processes. Throughout the 20th century, advances in chemistry enabled the production of an artificial version using oil.
Rubber is one of the important materials of today's industry. Wheels of motorized and non-motorized vehicles, various raincoats, shoes, the most important insulators in electricity, items such as buttons, combs, and pencils, adhesive solutions, varnishes are the forms in which rubber is applied to the industry. Due to the extensive use of natural rubber and its inability to meet demand, synthetic (artificial) rubber was obtained by the Germans in 1906 to obtain rubber cheaply and in large quantities. Rubber is actually the name of a tree. Materials obtained from this tree and its sap, latex, have found a wide range of uses in the industry. In recent years, with the widespread use of synthetic rubber in addition to natural rubber, many types of rubber have emerged. A large part of the millions of tons of rubber produced each year is synthetic.
The most important feature of rubber is its high elasticity, that is, its ability to return to its original state. The development of the rubber processing industry and the use of rubber in almost every sector are based on this property. Rubber is a product obtained by drying latex (sap in plants that looks like milk), which is found mostly in plants of the Euphorbiaceae family, as well as in plants of the Compositae, Apocynaceae, and Asclepiadaceae families. The name of rubber comes from the language of the natives of the Amazon region (caa-o-cu - crying tree). In Brazil, shoes were once made by coagulating rubber applied layer by layer on a dried mud mold. Waterproof fabrics were also produced by drying latex between cloths. Rubber was first mentioned in the 1530s. It was not known before. The modern rubber manufacturing industry began with the process of hardening rubber with sulfur (vulcanization) (1839). The development of this industry led to the processing of raw rubber and its use in many places. In 1839-1840, Goodyear in the United States and Hancock in England combined rubber with sulfur and obtained a material that was non-sticky in heat and did not lose its flexibility in the cold. The foundation of today's tire industry was laid.
History of Rubber
What we call 'tire' in our spoken language is a herbal product whose raw material is obtained from tropical trees. A variety of these trees called the Brazilian rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) is of commercial importance. This tree, which is a plant unique to the forests of the Amazon region of Brazil, was later taken to the Far East and was easily grown in these regions with the same climatic conditions. 20 - 30 m. Brazilian rubber tree, tall, with a round trunk and leaves clustered at the top, grows in wet soils with plenty of humus. The person who first introduced rubber into our daily lives (in the 1940s) was Johnson Goodyear, also known as the father of rubber. Raw rubber is called latex. It is mixed with cotton or viscose and used in making belt corsets and rubber socks (compression stockings). Rubber can be made into a flexible substance to make clothing, hoses and tires. The absorbent properties of rubber make it a useful substance in automobile suspension. Rubber also reduces vibrations of industrial materials. Rubber is also used in waterproof finishing. Since rubber is water resistant, it is used in diving suits and raincoats. Rubber is a good electrical insulator and is often used to coat electrical wires. Rubber can be formed into foam consisting of millions of air bubbles. By molding this foam, many lightweight products such as sponges and pillows can be obtained. Obtaining rubber was first started in Brazil. Annual production in the early 19th century was 30 tons. Today, world natural rubber production reaches 4 million tons per year, apart from more than 1 million tons of artificial rubber obtained synthetically. For nearly a century, rubber production has been accompanied by technical and industrial developments, giving a new impetus to their progress. Its flexibility, abrasion resistance and water resistance have made rubber one of the most popular materials in modern industry, especially in mechanical transportation techniques.
Rubber History Chronology
1493 - During his second voyage to America, Christopher Columbus saw the natives on the island of Haiti playing with a strange ball. This ball bounced as it hit the ground.
1521 - During the years when Mexico was under Spanish rule, some Spanish explorers observed that the natives were using an elastic material. Various rumors about this started circulating in Europe. It was said that the natives were sticking colorful feathers to their bodies using a whitish substance resembling milk from a plant, thus dressing up as shamans. There were also rumors that this milk-like substance, after drying, formed a type of shoe resembling a sandal in which they dipped and removed their feet.
1735 - A Frenchman named Charles de la Condamine set out for the Amazon forests to solve the mystery of these strange plants that no European had encountered before. The natives called the tree 'heve' or 'cao ochu', meaning 'tears'. After an adventure-filled journey, de la Condamine found this mysterious tree. He cut the bark, extracted the milk (latex = rubber), dried it, made some models, and sent them to France. The scientists of that era began to examine and analyze this strange substance.
