Natural Rubber

plants · materials · chemistry

Comes from trees. Natural rubber is made from a milky liquid called latex that flows inside rubber tree bark. When you tap the bark, the latex oozes out, kind of like sap from other trees.

Made of molecules. Rubber is built from tiny building blocks called isoprene molecules that link together in long chains. These chains are what make rubber so stretchy and bouncy instead of hard and brittle.

Super stretchy stuff. Natural rubber can stretch way beyond its normal size and then snap right back to shape. This happens because those long molecule chains can spread apart and pull back together again.

From rainforests originally. Rubber trees grew wild in the Amazon rainforest of South America long ago. Today, most rubber trees are grown on farms in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand and Indonesia.

Useful for everything. Natural rubber became popular for making tires, bouncy balls, erasers, and waterproof clothing. Even today, it's mixed with other materials to create products that need to be flexible and tough.