Natural rubber

Natural Rubber is an essential raw material used to create more than 40,000 products.

It is used in medical devices, surgical gloves, aircraft and car tyres, pacifiers, clothes, toys, etc. Natural rubber is obtained from latex, a whitish, milky fluid containing proteins, starch, alkaloids, etc., produced by many plants.

Uncured rubber is used for cements, adhesives, insulation, and friction tapes; and for crepe rubber used in insulating blankets and footwear. Vulcanized rubber has many more applications.

Resistance to abrasion makes softer kinds of rubber valuable for the treads of vehicle tyres and conveyor belts, and makes hard rubber valuable for pump housings and piping used in handling abrasive sludge.

The flexibility of rubber is appealing in hoses, tyres and rollers for devices ranging from domestic clothes wringers to printing presses; its elasticity makes it suitable for various kinds of shock absorbers and for specialised machinery mountings designed to reduce vibration.