Differences between rubber and plastic | MULAN

Rubber is a kind of polymer material with high elasticity and its deformation is reversible. At room temperature, rubber is elastic, with a small external force can produce a larger deformation, remove the external force can be restored to the original state. Rubber is a completely amorphous polymer, its glass transition temperature is low, the molecular weight is very large, usually greater than hundreds of thousands. Rubber can be divided into natural rubber and synthetic rubber. Natural rubber is extracted and processed from plants such as rubber trees or rubber grass, and synthetic rubber is obtained by polymerization of various monomers.

The most essential difference between rubber and plastic is that when deformation occurs, rubber is elastic deformation and plastic is plastic deformation. In other words, plastic deformation is not easy to return to the original state, but rubber is much easier. The elasticity of plastics is usually less than 100%, and rubber can often reach more than 1000%. Unlike plastics, rubber molding also requires a vulcanization process after completion.

Rubber products are widely used in all aspects of industry or life. Rubber not only provides people with daily life indispensable, medical and other light industrial rubber products, but also to mining, transportation, construction, machinery, electronics and other heavy industry and emerging industries to provide a variety of rubber production equipment or rubber parts. Rubber is widely used in every field of life today, such as household appliances, instrumentation, wire and cable, construction equipment, communication electronics, automotive industry, aerospace, daily hardware and so on.