Rubber Articles

We give below some interesting articles which will help you to understand rubber and industrial rubber products:

Article 1: HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT MEDICAL GLOVES: AN IDEA ABOUT LATEX ALLERGY!
It is seen in recent years an increasing incidence of allergic reactions among health care workers to latex medical gloves. There are several groups of people who are at increased risk for latex allergy.

A latex glove is made up of natural latex, cornstarch powder applied on the glove and numerous chemicals. The human immune system sometimes responds to these foreign matter.

Some major skin reactions:

Irritant dermatitis: This type of skin irritation does not involve the body’s immune response. Some causes for this irritation are frequent hand washing and inadequate drying, aggressive scrubbing and use of detergents, mechanical abrasive effect of glove powder, climatic irritation and emotional stress.

Type IV allergy (Delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity): This is a skin reaction caused due to the chemicals used in latex glove production and the reaction is typically seen 6-48 hours after contact. The reaction limited to the skin that has contacted the glove.

Type I allergy (Immediate reaction): These are kind of systemic allergic reactions which are caused by circulating IgE antibodies to the proteins in natural latex. Symptoms such as hives, rhinitis, conjunctivitis, anaphylaxis and hypotension occur soon after exposure to latex, within 30 minutes.

Another major factor for allergy is due to the cornstarch powder used in latex gloves. Cornstarch powder binds the latex protein in the surgical glove, as a result of which the antigen reaches both the wearer’s skin more easily (when the hand becomes moist during surgery) and the patient’s skin. Also, when the surgeon both dons and removes the glove, cornstarch powder is released into the air, and this itself cause irritation via inhalation.

It is also important to note that not all latex gloves are created equal. There are significant differences between manufacturers and product lines in the amount of free latex protein and chemicals used in the production of gloves. Different brands of gloves different rates of reaction.

Is latex glove a wrong choice: glove characteristics to look for!
There are several important factors to consider which are as follows :

• First, gloves provide barrier protection both for the health care worker and the patient. It helps to guard against contact with blood, other body fluids, and microorganisms. Latex has been in use for many years, and has proven barrier protective capability. The barrier effectiveness of latex glove is much more than synthetic rubber gloves.
• Second, a glove should give comfort. One should be able to done it easily, and then be able to perform surgery with the feeling that as if you weren’t even wearing a glove at all. Again, for this, latex is better—the synthetic rubber is stiffer than latex, and less comfortable to wear.
• Third, cost is also an important factor. Latex gloves are usually less expensive than synthetic rubber gloves.

So latex as a material has substantial benefits for surgical gloves.

Conclusion
It is thus evident that we need gloves which can provide excellent barrier protection, surgeon comfort, and at an acceptable cost. The ideal glove, if it is latex, should be powder free, should be very low in extractable latex protein, and should have the smallest concentration and the fewest number of residual chemicals from manufacture.

Article 2: TIRES OF THE FUTURE—USE OF POLYURETHANE TIRES
There are inherent weaknesses of rubber tires. Tread separation, dry rot and a complicated and time-consuming production process are all associated with rubber tires—all these factors lead to the development of an alternative tire material and many attempts have been made in this regard. Way back in 1950s, tire companies were experimenting with making tires out of polyurethane, but they were not successful in creating that formula that would yield performance as good as that of rubber and so the idea was given up. However in recent years, again attempts have been made to develop polyurethane auto tire that can go toe to toe with rubber.

Polyurethane is a fully reacted polymer, widely varying in flexibility and usually used in tough chemical-resistant coatings, adhesives, and foams. With rubber, there are many un-bonded elements which are left over from the vulcanization process and as the tire ages, this process leads to hardening, cracks and more frequent trips to the tire store. Moreover, the cost of production is also involved. Making rubber tire is a complex undertaking which is expensive as well as time consuming.

Though cheap polyurethane tires won't sell if they don't perform in the same way as rubber, the polyurethane tires with correct formulations have been proved to 45% better than the competitive test tire in rolling resistance, leading to the fact that a car equipped with polyurethane tires could get up to 10% better fuel economy. These figures have drawn the attention of at least three unnamed automakers interested in the technology, one of which is already testing prototypes.

Article 3: RECYCLING RUBBER: HISTORY
Recycling of industrial rubber is almost as old as manufacturing of industrial rubber itself.

Way back in 1820, Charles Macintosh, soon after he started making raincoats with rubberized cloth, needed more rubber than he could import. Thomas Hancock, his research partner came up with a solution. He developed a machine which can grind up scraps of rubber produced during the raincoat-making process. These scraps were then mashed into larger rubber blocks which could be fed back into the manufacturing process. The machine to this job was called “A masticator” or "pickle" because it essentially chewed the rubber scraps into smaller bits. However, the days of easy rubber recycling, were short-lived.

The process of vulcanization which made much of the modern rubber industry possible also makes rubber recycling more difficult. Once it has been vulcanized, rubber cannot be melted back down and formed into a new product. This is because vulcanization links all the molecules in a rubber product into one big molecule that will not flow apart so easily.

In the 20th century, recycling still made strong, short-term economic sense because rubber, natural or synthetic, was expensive. In 1910, an ounce of rubber was bought at the same cost as an ounce of silver. That is one reason for which the average recycled content of all rubber products was over 50 % well into the 20th Century. By 1960, however, the recycled content of rubber products went down to an average of 20 %. This is because cheap oil imports and the increasing use of synthetic rubber brought manufacturing costs down. The development of steel-belted radial tires by 1960s would just about finish off the rubber recycling industry. This is because it made slicing and grinding tires for rubber prohibitively expensive.