Natural vs Synthetic Rubber: How It’s Made and What It’s Used For

When your company needs custom rubber molding done for its projects, one of the questions you need to answer is whether you need natural or synthetic rubber. Natural rubber and its synthetic alternatives have different properties that may make them more or less suitable for your needs. Here are a few differences between natural and synthetic materials and why those differences matter.

Natural Rubber

Working with natural rubber is an ancient technology that began in Mesoamerica. While modern innovations have improved the production and use of natural rubber, its versatility has made it a popular and valuable material for thousands of years.

How Natural Rubber Is Made

Natural rubber starts with tree sap. While thousands of species produce latex-rich sap, the Rubber Tree (Hevea brasiliensis) is the most important for commercial production.

Rubber producers tap trees by slashing the tree’s bark and collecting the sap. They add ammonia to the collected sap to keep it from solidifying, and then acids are added to the mixture to coagulate the rubber. Excess water is removed by pressing and drying the mixture, and then the dried rubber is baled for shipment.

Advantages of Natural Rubber

The chief advantage of natural rubber is the material’s flexibility and strength. Natural rubber also resists cutting and wear. These properties make natural rubber ideal for applications where flexibility and durability are paramount.

Synthetic Rubber

In addition to natural rubber, Clark Rubber and Plastic provides custom rubber molding with various synthetic rubber materials. While natural and synthetic materials have different qualities, they have several features in common.

How Synthetic Rubber Is Made

Manufacturing synthetic rubber begins with a petrochemical base. Oil and coal are the most common sources of these chemicals. A mixture of hydrocarbons is made from the chemical base, then refined to produce naphtha. Natural gas is added to the naphtha to produce monomers such as styrene, chloroprene, and propylene. A catalyst is then added to polymerize the material into the desired form. These polymers can then be heat treated to produce the desired properties.

Advantages of Synthetic Rubber

The main advantage of synthetic rubber materials is its versatility. While no one material can do everything, synthetic rubbers can be formulated for a variety of specialized needs. Examples of this include:

• Polyisobutylene has exceptional shock absorption properties and is commonly used in construction to protect buildings from earthquakes.
• Ethylene propylene diene (EPDM) is resistant to environmental factors. This makes EPDM a good choice for applications that need superior weather resistance.
• Neoprene is water and corrosion-resistant, making it an excellent choice for marine applications.
• Nitrile is puncture and chemical resistant, making it a superior option for PPEs.

Whether an application requires extreme heat tolerance, chemical resistance, or light tolerance, synthetic rubber meets that need.

Rubber Molding for Your Needs

Clark Rubber and Plastic offers custom rubber molding for various applications and industries. We have experience making natural and synthetic rubber for automotive, military, solar, and more applications. If you need molded rubber parts for your business, contact us for a quote.