How Is Rubber Made?
There are two types of rubber, natural rubber and synthetic rubber. Natural rubber is produced by collecting latex from rubber trees. Large plantations of rubber trees are planted and early in the morning slits are cut into the trees. The trees then drip latex from the slits into buckets. The buckets are emptied every two to three hours and then transported as fast as possible to the rubber factory. If the latex is left for longer than three hours it will coagulate and is then useless for producing rubber. You will not find natural rubber on your car tyres, however natural rubber is sometimes used for aeroplane tyres due to the cost of production, these are certainly not cheap tyres! Rubber bands are often made from natural rubber as it is stretchy, flexible and extremely waterproof.
Synthetic rubber is made from fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, natural gas and acetylene. The petroleum based products are heated in much the same way as the natural rubber product. This forms clumps of rubber, which is then dried out and rolled into large sheets. The sheets can then be transported to factories where the production is carried out. Once the rubber reaches its destination it is then moulded in to its final form. The moulding can be done in several ways, extrusion, injection moulding and compression moulding. Extrusion is where the rubber is heated and then forced at pressure through a small opening this can produce large strands of rubber. Compression moulding is where the rubber is compressed under high pressure and heated around a mould it is then cooled and maintains the shape of the mould. The final technique is injection moulding, this is completed by injected hot rubber into a mould and cooling it down to form the final product.