Abstract
PROBABLY in no industry is the old ground of knowledge less thoroughly explored and the new unbroken field for useful research so extensive and attractive as in the rubber industry taken as a whole. A hundred years or a little more have passed since the discovery that rubber could be converted into a workable form by solution in suitable solvents or by mechanical kneading, and the process of vulcanisation was discovered eighty years ago. These operations, which are yet applied unaltered in principle and very little different in practical detail, still represent the foundation of rubber manufacture of the present day; compared with them, all the other innovations have been of minor importance. The disadvantages, however, inherent to these fundamental operations are so marked as to cause surprise that so little further advance has been made during the last half-century. It is almost astounding that so large a portion of the effective history of the industry should be found recorded in the remarkable “Personal Narrative” of Thomas Hancock, published in 1857, after his. retirement.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
T., D. The Research Association of British Rubber and Tyre Manufacturers. Nature 110, 297 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110297a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110297a0