Rubber technology: What is rubber?

Rubber is used as a name for 3 categories:

Raw or base polymers.
These determine the main characteristics of the final product.
Semi-manufactured product
The addition to raw rubber of various chemicals, to impart desirable properties, is termed compounding. The material is however stillmalleableand plastic.
Final product
Because of a vulcanisation process the rubber compound gets its elastic properties.

Modern rubber materials consists of approximately 60 percent of synthetic polymers and the other part consists of vulcanisation agents, softeners, accelerators, anti aging agents and other chemicals. These additions are necessary to achieve the desired properties of the final product.

Polymers have a backbone of hydrocarbons. The hydrogen atom is often replaced by other atoms or molecules (like CH3, Cl or F) and thus create another type of elastomer. These chains are chemically bonded together by sulphur, peroxides or bisphenol. An exception is silicone. Silicone contain very flexible siloxane backbones (Si-O) and can only be cured with peroxide.