Vulcanization of Rubber

Rubber, in the form of latex, was discovered in the early 16^th century in South America, but it gained little acceptance because it became sticky and lost its shape in the heat.

Charles Goodyear was trying to find a way to make the rubber stable when he accidentally spilled a batch of rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove. He noticed that the resulting compound didn’t lose its shape in the heat. Goodyear went on to patent the vulcanization process, the chemical process used to treat crude or synthetic rubber or plastics to give them useful properties such as elasticity, strength, and stability.