Elastomers

Abstract

Although naturally occurring rubber from the tropical tree has been known for ages, the Spanish navigator and historian Gonzalo Valdez (1478–1557) was the first to describe the rubber balls used by Indians. Natural rubber was brought back to Europe from the Amazon in 1735 by Charles Condamine, a French mathematical geographer, but it remained only a curiosity. Michael Faraday made a rubber hose from it in 1824. But it was not until Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanization in 1839 that natural rubber got its first wave of interest. As the story goes, Charles became so involved with his job that he set up a laboratory at home to study the chemistry of rubber. Because his wife hated the odor of his experiments, he could only continue his work at home when she was not around. While studying the effect of sulfur and other additives on the properties of rubber he was interrupted unexpectedly by his wife one day when she returned home early from shopping. He quickly shoved his latest mixture into the oven to hide it. As fate had it, the oven was lit, the rubber was vulcanized, and the modern era of elastomer research was born. His first patent covering this process was issued in 1844.