Why Rubber May Be Better than Plastic
When taken to a microscope, both are a combination of polymers and additives that combine to create the final product or compound. As such, they’re both materials that can be melted, mixed, and molded into numerous shapes to serve various purposes.
Traditionally, their unique properties are what set them apart, but more and more, it’s these same properties that elevate modern rubber products above their plastic counterparts.
Tensile strength: While modern manufacturing plastics can have properties that are rubber-like, they don’t compare when it comes to the dialed-in adaptability rubber compounds provide. Long-used processes like vulcanization and more modern innovations like highly customized compound mixtures allow rubber products to vary greatly in preferred tensile strength.
Temperature tolerance: Again, modern plastics are designed to withstand greater heat variations than traditional mixtures, but most commercial plastic products are limited when it comes to extreme heat or cold. Many plastics soften and melt under extreme heat or become brittle and break when cold. Rubber, conversely, can have much higher temperature tolerances and can often retain its shape, toughness, and other properties even when subjected to a wide spectrum of temperatures.
Biodegradability: Sustainability will always be a consideration for modern manufacturers like AirBoss, and the result is a company priority to pursue more proactive sustainability goals. While efforts are being made to make plastics more eco-friendly, the history of plastic biodegradability is not a positive one. Some traditional plastics like bags and disposable diapers won’t break down for 500 to 1,000 years. Rubber, on the other hand, (especially natural rubber) is biodegradable and breaks down in about a year’s time. More chemical-heavy synthetic rubbers take longer to break down but are still highly biodegradable compared to plastics.
These are just three examples of why rubber can outperform plastics in most common applications, but the advantages of rubber products, compounds, and production processes continue to make it a preferred alternative around the world for certain applications.
Plastic, rubber, synthetics—they’re all the same, and it really doesn’t matter which you use, yes?
No. The production materials you use impact your entire production line, from concept to finished product. Your business will find financial and conceptual benefit if you switch to more sustainable manufacturing solutions.
What’s the difference between rubber and plastic, and why should you choose rubber compounding for your production needs?
Many manufacturers default to plastic because it’s easy to source. Most plastics are synthetic polymers derived from petroleum. Heavy crude oil is broken down and separated, combined with hydrocarbons and other chemicals, and finalized to create the plastic products we’re familiar with today.
Global plastic production from 1950 to 2019 churned out more than 359 million metric tons. The market value of all of that plastic is projected to reach $721 billion by the year 2024.
Most plastics are not elastic at room temperature due to their high glass transition temperatures (Tg). Tg is the glassy-elastic transformation threshold temperature. Below it, polymer chains are frozen and cannot mobilize, which makes a plastic rigid. An example is a polystyrene, whose Tg is about 90C. it is a rigid plastic at room temperature. If the temperature is above the Tg, polymer chains are unfrozen and are mobile, which rends the plastic soft and elastic. An example is polyethylene, whose Tg is about -125C. it is therefore an elastic material at room temperature.
Most rubbers have very low Tg, in the range of -50 to -100C. They are elastic at room temperature.
Of course, it is insufficient, just to select plastic or rubber for your application based on its Tg, there are other factors one needs to consider. Such as physical and chemical properties under service conditions. For plastics without being crosslinked, or vulcanized, or 3D networked, even they are elastic at room temperature, they will have very poor elastic retention, or long-term elasticity, under most service conditions. This makes plastics not suitable for applications where elastic retention is needed.
Natural latex rubber compounds, like the ones we use at Airboss Rubber Solutions, are sustainable alternatives to plastics. Natural latex rubber is pulled straight from nature’s more than 2,500 different rubber-producing plants.
The long-chain polymers that form natural latex (elastomers) stretch, flex, and give rubber its unique properties.
Unlike its plastic counterparts, latex rubber is renewable and sustainable. Latex rubber compounding—the process of adding specific chemicals and additives—allows for complex customization for a diverse range of applications.
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