Without rubber, the automotive industry as we know it would not exist. Without the synthetic rubbers used in tires, doors, trunks, window seals, toothed belts and hoses, our cars would not be as fast, powerful, and reliable as they are today.
What do tennis balls, squash balls, footballs, basket¬balls, and golf balls have in common? Well, they all contain rubber. Rubber compounds are used to improve the properties of these items to best suit the sport in question. A rubber core allows golf balls to sail through the air for longer distances and lends tennis and squash balls the required level of bounce.
When Charles Marie de la Condamine returned to France from America in 1745, he brought with him a brown, sticky mass known to the South American Indians as “caa-o-chu” or “cahuchu”. Translated, the word means “the weeping tree”. Condamine had observed how the native people made cuts in a particular type of tree before collecting the milky substance exuded by the bark and boiling it into a brown mass over a fire. They then put it to very practical use. By spreading the brown substance onto material, for example, they created waterproof cloaks and shoes. As the French were unable to pronounce the Indian word for this substance, they named it “caoutchouc” or rubber in English.
Not only do conveyor belts coated with the EVM rubber Levapren from LANXESS transport your luggage safely into airport arrivals halls, they also make sure people and materials reach their intended destination.
Cell phone displays, watch glasses, and computer screens can become scratched all too easily. Films made from the ethylene vinyl acetate rubber (EVM) Levamelt from LANXESS provide protection for such surfaces – at least until they are used for the first time. The adhesives in the films contain the EVM rubber and offer a range of key benefits – the films can be removed without leaving any residue, for example. Other areas of application for Levamelt include printable adhesive labels that can be used as advertising media on windows and are simple and straightforward to remove when no longer required.
When it comes to providing protection from low temperatures in colder waters, chlorobutadiene rubber (CR) is ideal. The foamed material that keeps the water away from the body contains an even distribution of numerous tiny air bubbles, lending the material its outstanding thermal insulation properties. That’s why the CR rubber Baypren is a material of choice with manufacturers of wetsuits for water sports (suits for divers, surfers, and canoeists). The material can be between 2.5 and 8 millimeters thick depending on the level of protection from the cold required.
Wherever parts are in motion – be it under car hoods, on motorbikes, in sawmills or funfair rides – driving belts, V-belts and toothed belts of different cross-sections, lengths, and materials are essential for transmitting power and controlling other components. What’s more, hoses, cables, and seals made of synthetic rubber fulfill an absolutely indispensable function in the engine compartment.
Synthetic rubber offers great potential in the field of environmental protection. Take tires, for example. If every truck and car in Europe were fitted with highly efficient tires with low rolling resistance, it could save 4.5 billion liters of diesel and 1.5 billion liters of gasoline each year. This in turn would cut CO2 emissions by 15 million metric tons. This is because there are considerable differences in the quality of the different rubber materials currently used to manufacture tires. According to investigations carried out by German automobile club ADAC, the rolling resistance of the different tires on one and the same vehicle can vary by up to 50 percent. Tire manufacturers say that optimized rubber compounds and changes in the way tires are constructed could help in this respect. More intelligent use of the filler silica, carefully engineered rubber compounds, profile design and tire properties would play a crucial role in this process. Leading tire manu¬facturers are keen to reduce rolling resistance by up to 50 percent in the next years. Car manufacturers, parts manufacturers and their suppliers in the chemical industry will have to work hand-in-hand if they are to meet EU limits for CO2 emissions from vehicles in the future.
There is still a long way to go before we run out of potential applications for technical rubbers. Wherever technological advances are made in automotive engineering, energy generation using the wind and sun, air and space travel, building services engineering, nanotechnology and even sports equipment such as shoes and balls, technical rubbers and rubber chemicals will be involved – invisible, yet indispensable. Without them, innovative concepts could not be trans¬formed into reality and we would not have the opportunity to discover the benefits they offer.
Household gloves, gardening gloves and sterile single-use gloves that provide protection against infection are all made from rubber. Thin fingerstalls made from latex, nitrile or vinyl are often much more practical than their leather, fabric or wool counterparts, particularly in the health care sector. Synthetic rubber has a crucial advantage in this respect as gloves made from the natural rubber latex cause an allergic reaction in many people who have to work with them on a regular basis. This reaction is caused by the proteins contained in the natural material. If the gloves are made of synthetic rubber, there is no risk of any such reaction.
If there was ever a man truly obsessed with rubber, that man was Charles Nelson Goodyear. His sheer passion and commitment to the production of rubber is virtually unparalleled. In 1839, he was the first person to carry out the process of vulcanization (see “Vulcanization” section). However, Goodyear’s passion for rubber failed to bring him good fortune – it was the reason he ended up in a debtors’ prison on several occasions and, in the end, it cost him his life. Aged 60, he died from the effects of his experiments with rubber and all types of toxic chemicals. Nevertheless, without the pioneering work of Goodyear, rubber would not have enjoyed such a stellar rise to success.
The native peoples of South and Central America such as the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs used dried, smoked rubber long before the continent was discovered by the Europeans. For example, rubber was used in the very earliest types of ball games.
Japan is one of the regions of the world most prone to earthquakes. The foundations of many high-rise buildings in Japan have been fitted with rubber buffers to provide protection against the tremors created by earthquakes. Architects use the elastic properties of the material to protect the structure of buildings.
Tiny particles that have a big impact. Nanoprene is a new product from LANXESS for tire treads containing silica. This innovative, high-performance additive, which is currently being tested by tire manufacturers, extends the service life of tires by 15 percent, improves their grip by the same amount and also reduces rolling resistance. This in turn reduces fuel consumption. The much longer service life of the tire is easy on the wallet and the environment. The secret behind this development is the small size and surface functionality of the Nanoprene particles. In chemical terms, this additive – which is manufactured at LANXESS in a highly specialized process – is made up of rubber compound particles just 50 nanometers in size (one nanometer is equal to one thousand-millionth of a meter). The surface of the nanoparticles has special “anchor points” that interact with the silica filler – a big step forward for tire production.
Oil and rubber – two crucial substances that complement one another perfectly. Without “black gold”, our industrialized world would practically grind to a halt. Oil derivatives are also used to produce synthetic rubber. On the other side of the coin, today’s cutting-edge oil production could not function without rubber. High-performance rubbers are used in the numerous joints in drilling systems. These rubbers are resistant to oil, gases and aggressive drilling fluids, can withstand the high temperatures at depths of 5,000 meters and more, and are subject to only very minimal wear by the fine particles of rock known as drill cuttings. In addition, blow-out preventers made of rubber seal the borehole if overpressure occurs.
O-rings are ring-shaped sealing elements made from various grades of rubber. The name is derived from the round, O-shaped cross-section of the rubber ring. The type of seal that the ring provides has a diverse range of applications. It is used as a sealing element in cylinders, pipes, flanges, plates, and closures in the auto¬motive and mechanical engineering sector, for example. These rings can be found not only in practically every area of industry, but also in houses and apartments – O-rings are to be found in all common household taps.
Polymers are created when small molecules known as monomers are linked with one another in the same consistent sequence. Polymerization is therefore the process of bonding several molecules of a substance to create a new compound. In 1909, the chemist Fritz Hofmann discovered a way to polymerize isoprene to create synthetic rubber. Isoprene is the common name for the un¬saturated hydrocarbon 2-methyl-1,3-butadiene. It serves as one of the raw materials used to manufacture synthetic rubbers.
Synthetic rubber has improved man’s quality of life considerably. Without rubber, the world would be a very different place. With applications in products as diverse as chewing gum, rubber boots, seals and car tires, rubber has become an integral part of our day-to-day lives. And with no suitable alternative, rubber is, quite simply, irre¬placeable.
According to Joseph Priestley (the man who discovered oxygen), British engineer Edward Nairne was the first person to coin the English term “rubber”, having discovered the eraser effect of the material quite by accident. Nairne inadvertently used a piece of natural rubber to rub out a pencil sketch, instead of the breadcrumbs commonly used at that time. Once he realized that this material was more effective than the breadcrumbs, he began to sell pieces of it under the name “rubber”. And so it was that the rubber, or eraser, was invented.
Rubber is used in running shoes to absorb impact and provide support – this prevents the sportsperson suffering inappropriate stress or strains and protects feet and joints alike. Ethylene-vinyl acetate rubber and styrene-butadiene rubber are the reason it is possible to create the elastic, multi-layered sole that acts as a shock-absorbing cushion between the foot and the hard surface.
Synthetic rubbers also have a role to play when it comes to alternative energies. Ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymers for manufacturing solar cells are currently being tested on the roof of the LANXESS headquarters in Leverkusen. The process of manufacturing this solar power system is made far easier by the use of ethylene-vinyl acetate elastomers from LANXESS. The silicon wafers are embedded in films made of the transparent rubber Levamelt and attached securely to the substrate. As a result, the otherwise complex process of positioning and fixing the cells becomes more simple and straightforward.
The V-belt is the best known of the drive belts. Made of rubber with a textile, glass fiber or steel cable insert, it is used in vehicles to drive the generator, and often also the fan, water pump and hydraulic pumps for power steering. In the household environment, it is used to spin the drum in washing machines, for example. Hydro¬genated nitrile-butadiene rubber (HNBR) produced by LANXESS under the name Therban is used in V-belts and toothed belts.
Vulcanization is a thermo-chemical process used to transform rubber into an elastomer and make it resistant to mechanical stresses. Over time, and using heat, pressure, sulfur and other crosslinking agents and fillers, a three-dimensional network is created, giving the vulcanized rubber permanently elastic properties. As a result, it reverts back to its original state after exposure to mechanical stress and has high tensile strength, elongation, and resistance. These qualities mean that vulcanized rubber ages at a slower rate.
Were it not for reliable rubber seals, your kitchen and cellar would spend quite a lot of time flooded with water. Not only do the rubber surrounds keep water at bay, they can also cope with pressure and high temperatures.
There is no doubt that the “V-Steel-E-Lug S” definitely falls into the “extra-large” category. A few years ago, Japanese tire manufacturer Bridgestone unveiled the world’s largest radial ply tire at construction machinery trade fairs. Measuring 4.03 meters in diameter and weighing in at 5.2 metric tons, this tire really does have XXL pro¬portions. These tires are what get monster trucks around the biggest mines in the world. The mass of rubber used in the construction of this giant tire is enough to make more than 400 standard automobile tires and the price of just one of these colossal tires easily exceeds EUR 30,000.
If a car tire is labeled with the letter “Y”, it indicates that that particular model can be driven at a maximum speed of 300 km/h. In terms of the speed indexes (ranging from L = 100 km/h to Y = 300 km/h), that is the highest category for tires in normal use on the road.
