【正文】 of natural rubber is the chemical polyisoprene, which can also be produced synthetically. Natural rubber is used extensively in many applications and products, as is synthetic rubber. It is normally very stretchy and flexible and extremely waterproof.The mercial source of natural rubber latex is the para rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), a member of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. This is largely because it responds to wounding by producing more latex, also this means that the tree is able to photosynthesise more.Other plants containing latex include guttapercha (Palaquium gutta),[1] rubber fig (Ficus elastica), Panama rubber tree (Castilla elastica), spurges (Euphorbia spp.), lettuce, mon dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), Russian dandelion (Taraxacum koksaghyz), Scorzonera (tausaghyz), and guayule (Parthenium argentatum). Although these have not been major sources of rubber, Germany attempted to use some of these during World War II when it was cut off from rubber supplies[citation needed]. These attempts were later supplanted by the development of synthetic rubbers. To distinguish the treeobtained version of natural rubber from the synthetic version, the term gum rubber is sometimes used.4 Discovery of mercial potentialThe para rubber tree initially grew in South America. Charles Marie de La Condamine is credited with introducing samples of rubber to the Acad233。mie Royale des Sciences of France in 1736.[2] In 1751, he presented a paper by Fran231。ois Fresneau to the Acad233。mie (eventually published in 1755) which described many of the properties of rubber. This has been referred to as the first scientific paper on rubber.[2]When samples of rubber first arrived in England, it was observed by Joseph Priestley, in 1770, that a piece of the material was extremely good for rubbing off pencil marks on paper, hence the name rubber. Later it slowly made its way around England.South America remained the main source of the limited amounts of latex rubber that were used during much of the 19th century. In 1876, Henry Wickham gathered thousands of para rubber tree seeds from Brazil, and these were germinated in Kew Gardens, England. The seedlings were then sent to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Indonesia, Singapore and British Malaya. Malaya (now Malaysia) was later to bee the biggest producer of rubber. About 100 years ago, the Congo Free State in Africa was also a significant source of natural rubber latex, mostly gathered by forced labour. Liberia and Nigeria also started production of rubber.In India, mercial cultivation of natural rubber was introduced by the British planters, although the experimental efforts to grow rubber on a mercial scale in India were initiated as early as 1873 at the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta. The first mercial Hevea plantations in India were established at Thattekadu in Kerala in 1902. In the 19th and early 20th century, it was often called India rubber. In 2010, India39。s natural rubber consumption stood at million tons per year, with production at million tons。 the rest was imported with an import duty of 20%.5 PropertiesRubber exhibits unique physical and chemical properties. Rubber39。s stressstrain behavior exhibits the Mullins effect, the Payne effect, and is often modeled as hyperelastic. Rubber strain crystallizes.Owing to the presence of a double bond in each repeat unit, natural rubber is sensitive to ozone cracking.6 ElasticityIn most elastic materials, such as metals used in springs, the elastic behavior is caused by bond distortions. When force is applied, bond lengths deviate from the (minimum energy) equilibrium and strain energy is stored electrostatically. Rubber is often assumed to behave in the same way, but it turns out this is a poor description. Rubber is a curious material because, unlike metals, strain energy is stored thermally.In its relaxed state, rubber consists of long, coiledup polymer chains that are interlinked at a few points. Between a pair of links, each monomer can rotate freely about its neighbour, thus giving each section of chain leeway to assume a large number of geometries, like a very loose rope attached to a pair of fixed points. At room temperature, rubber stores enough kinetic energy so that each section of chain oscillates chaotically, like the above piece of rope being shaken violently. The entropy model of rubber was developed in 1934 by Werner Kuhn.When rubber is stretched, the loose pieces of rope are taut and thus no longer able to oscillate. Their kinetic energy is given off as excess heat. Therefore, the entropy decreases when going from the relaxed to the stretched state, and it increases during relaxation. This change in entropy can also be explained by the fact that a tight section of chain can fold in fewer ways (W) than a loose section of chain, at a given temperature (nb. entropy is defined as S=k*ln(W)). Relaxation of a stretched rubber band is thus driven by an increase in entropy, and the force experienced is not electrostatic, rather it is a result of the thermal energy of the material being converted to kinetic energy. Rubber relaxation is endothermic, and for this reason the force exerted by a stretched piece of rubber increases with temperature. (Metals, for example, bee softer as temperature increases). The material undergoes adiabatic cooling during contraction. This property of rubber can easily be verified by holding a stretched rubber band to your lips and relaxing it. Stretching of a rubber band is in some ways equivalent to the pression of an ideal gas, and relaxation is equivalent to its expansion. Note that a pressed gas also exhibits elastic properties, for instance inside an inflated car tire. The fact that stretching is equivalent to pression may seem somewhat counterintuitive, but it makes sense if rubber is viewed as a onedimensional gas. Stretching reduces the space available to each section of chain.Vulcanization of rubber creates more disulfide bonds betwe