How Is Rubber Made?

Some people think that all rubber is made from latex produced from trees. This is not in fact the case. Only about 25-30% of all rubber is made from latex, which is milked from trees. The latex is a mixture of organic compounds which are produced in special cells of a tree called Hevea Brasiliensis. The trees are tapped by removing the bark and latex then flows down grooves which have been made in the tree, to collection bowls. Natural rubber is the preferred medium for production of radial tyres.

Artificial rubber is made from petroleum. Petroleum contains many carbon molecules. These are then chemically altered so they become molecules called dienes. These are then re-altered so they form a long chain called polymers and polymers are the finished 'synthetic rubber'. The growth of artificial rubber stems from the second World War, when it was very hard to source natural latex.

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Rubber is a substance which is elastic, flexible and absorbs shock well and that is why it has countless uses. It is air tight and water tight and also has the ability to rub out pencil marks. Rubber is naturally obtained from rubber trees which produce the latex from which rubber is made. But it's synthetically prepared in chemical factories.

There are different types of Rubber like Natural Rubber and Synthetic Rubber.
Natural rubber is produced from rubber trees. Rubber trees are mostly found in Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia and South America. Latex is obtained from rubber trees by tapping. Workers cut a narrow, slanting mark about half way round the trunk and it is just deep enough to pierce the living layer of cells beneath the bark. At the bottom of the cut, workers attach a metal spout and below it a cup in which a milky white latex is oozed from the cut. This latex is then processed in a factory. Only about a third of latex is pure rubber and the rest is only water. Rubber is present as tiny, dispersed drops. Crude rubber is made by treating it with formic acid.

The spongy mass of crude rubber is rolled into sheets to squeeze out all the water and rolled heaps are hung to make it dry.

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