Vulcanization of rubber
Vulcanización del caucho
- Date
- 1839 (patente 1844) · confidence high
- Place
- Woburn, Massachusetts, United States
- Credited to
- Charles Goodyear (and Thomas Hancock in London)
- People
- 👤 Charles Goodyear1800–1860
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Heating rubber with sulphur to make it elastic, stable in both cold and heat, and no longer sticky. It turned a tropical curiosity into an industrial material.
Goodyear discovered the process in 1839 in Woburn but patented it in 1844; Thomas Hancock obtained the British patent in 1843 after analysing Goodyear's samples, which led to a long legal dispute.
What it led to
- The rubber industry and colonial plantations (the Congo, Malaya, the Amazon)
- Tyres, belts, gaskets, electrical insulation
- The rubber atrocities in Leopold II's Congo
- Rubber raincoats, boots and condoms
Built on
- Sulfurc. 2000 BCE
- Natural rubber (Hevea) and the work of Macintosh and Hancock
- Sulphur chemistry
Made possible
- Rubber stamp1864-1866
- Solid rubber tyre1845-1867
- Pneumatic tyre1888–1891
- Herringbone tapping and Hevea rubber plantations1888-1897
- Synthetic rubber (Buna)1909–1935
- Solid tyre and pneumatic tyre
- Insulation of submarine telegraph cables
- Transmission belt