What Does Rubber Come From

Natural rubber comes from various sources the most common being the pará rubber tree hevea brasiliensis.

What does rubber come from. A synthetic rubber is any artificial elastomer. Global revenues generated with synthetic rubbers are likely to rise to approximately us 56 billion in 2020. This tree is said to have come from the amazon rainforest in brazil originally. Where does rubber come from.

Thailand and indonesia are two of the leading rubber producers. It appears to be unrelated to the elastic sort of rubber incidentally our modern elastic rubber is short for india rubber from its original source in the east indies. As its name suggests the rubber tree hevea brasiliensis originally came from brazil from where it was introduced to such countries of the far east as malaysia indonesia burma cambodia china and vietnam. During world war ii supplies of natural rubber from these nations were cut off just when there was a huge demand from the military and that accelerated the development of synthetic rubbers notably in germany and the united states.

In rubber the monomer is a carbon compound called isoprene that has two carbon carbon double bonds. Natural rubber is made from the milky white substance called latex that is produced by some trees and plants instead of sap. Like plastic rubber is a polymer which is a chain of repeating units called monomers. Unfortunately no one knows where rubber in this sense came from.

As the name suggests the rubber tree originated in tropical south america. The latex fluid that seeps from rubber trees has many isoprene molecules. Changing the ratio of latex to morning glory juice changed the properties of the rubber. Over 3 000 years ago mesoamerican civilizations mixed latex with morning glory juice to create rubber.

The vines in the genus landolphia yield the congo rubber. It grows well under cultivation and yields latex for several years. From bouncy balls to rubber sandals the mesoamericans knew and used rubber. Natural rubber also called india rubber latex amazonian rubber caucho or caoutchouc as initially produced consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene with minor impurities of other organic compounds plus water.

These vines cannot be grown in cultivation and this led to large scale exploitation of the wild plants in congo. They are polymers synthesized from petroleum byproducts. About 32 million metric tons of rubbers are produced annually in the united states and of that amount two thirds are synthetic. A set of three games of bridge is still generally referred to as a rubber.

Some polymers exist naturally and others are produced in laboratories and factories.