How is latex made

Doing so removes water, so the sheets can be dried and smoked. Finally, latex is prevulcanized. Prevulcanization involves chemical treatments and gentle heating at low temperatures. Once latex is prevulcanized, it is more convenient to transport.

With more heating, the material can now be made into regular rubber. Of course, not all latex is natural. Some latex is synthetic, composed of petroleum-based chemicals.

These chemicals are used to create synthetic rubber polymers, which are clumped and dried, then transported to a manufacturing plant. The manufacturing plant then mixes the synthetic rubber polymers. Sometimes, they mix in additional ingredients, depending on the end product for the synthetic latex. The plant rolls the rubber into sheets and cuts them into sheets for further processing. The most common synthetic rubber processing techniques are:. During extrusion, you feed the rubber polymer compound into the extruder, which heats it and compresses the material.

This is done by the barrel and screw of the extruder. The polymer compound is then forced through a small opening to be vulcanized or cured. Injection molding involves mixing rubber strips. Using high pressure, they are forced into a mold. Once in the mold, heat vulcanizes the rubber. Compression molding starts with preforms of rubber compound. The preforms are shaped to a mold with compression, pressure, and vulcanization.

After processing, latex is an impressive rubber material. Latex is known for its tensile and elongation abilities, as well as tear resistance and overall resilience.

Most common abrasives will not bother latex. Low temperatures are not a threat, but high temperatures can pose an issue. Above eighty-two degrees, latex can begin to corrode. The pinhole leak test is one of these methods. Workers fill the gloves with one liter of water, then close and hang the gloves to check for leaks. The tests adhere to guidelines regarding acceptable quality limits AQLs.

These standards designate a percentage to evaluate a batch of gloves. An AQL of 2. The results of these tests determine whether the gloves will be industrial or medical grade; the latter are subject to more rigorous testing. Once the gloves are approved and packaged, they are shipped to the U. Learn how you can add the durable protection and supreme comfort of latex gloves to your product line today by becoming an AMMEX distributor.

Sign In. IP and Branding Guidelines. Privacy Policy. Website Usage Policy. Site Map. We make it simple. Start Now. In , sodium was found to catalyze polymerization. When the Germans were cut off from natural rubber supplies during World War I, they used this discovery to make about 2, tons 2, metric tons of rubber made from dimethylbutadiene. Following the war, other countries developed their own synthetic rubber factories to avoid having to rely on overseas rubber supplies.

Improvements in synthetic rubber have continued, and in addition, higher yielding hybrid trees have been developed that yield twice as much natural latex as the conventional ones. Rubber has high elasticity and a polymer molecular structure. This structure consists of a long chain made up of tens of thousands of smaller units, called monomers, strung together. Each monomer unit has a molecular size comparable with that of a simple substance such as sugar.

Other special chemicals are used as preservatives or stimulants during the harvesting process. Both synthetic and natural rubber production require the use of vulcanizing chemicals, primarily sulfur.

Fillers such as carbon black are also added to provide extra strength and stiffness. Oil is often used to help processing and reduce cost. Growing and processing natural rubber is one of the most complex agricultural industries and requires several years.

It combines botany, chemistry, and sophisticated machinery with dexterous skills of the people who harvest the trees. Contrast this with synthetic rubber production, which involves chemical reactions and sophisticated chemical processing machinery that is automatically controlled by computers.

The production of natural latex is described below. Both the liquid and coagulated latex is sent to factories for processing. A number of quality checks are made after the latex is harvested. After tapping, the latex is checked for purity and other properties. After each step of the production process, technicians check physical properties and chemical composition, using a variety of analytical equipment.

The production of natural rubber has failed to meet the growing demand for rubber, and hence, today two-thirds of the world's rubber is synthetic. However, developments, such as the invention of epoxidized natural rubber which is produced by chemically treating natural rubber, may reverse this trend.

The synthetic rubber industry is also continuing to make processes more efficient, less costly, and less polluting, as well as developing new additives, compounds, and applications.

Though there are as many as 2, other plants that produce rubber, it is not made fast enough to be profitable. United States Department of Agriculture researchers are looking at ways to speed up the process by genetically engineering a plant to make larger initiator molecules.