from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A process by which rubber is hardened using heat and sulphur.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. The act or process of imparting to caoutchouc, gutta-percha, or the like, greater elasticity, durability, or hardness by heating with sulphur under pressure.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A method of treating caoutchouc or india-rubber with some form of sulphur, to effect certain changes in its properties, and yield a soft (vulcanized india-rubber) or a hard (vulcauite) product.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. process of treating rubber or rubberlike materials with sulphur at great heat to improve elasticity and strength or to harden them
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Editor's note: If you follow the link below you will find larger versions of former NASA Chief Scientist John Grunsfeld's "vulcanization".
Charles Goodyear paved the way for mass production of "rubbers" when he patented the vulcanization of rubber in 1843, and they were a mainstay of birth-control efforts until the pill emerged as more dependable and convenient.
Includes discussion of natural polymers from tropical trees and the vulcanization of rubber, semi-synthetics (such as celluloid), thermosetting plastics (such as Bakelite), amino plastics (such as melamine), thermoplastics, and high-tech plastics.
The addition of sap to latex begins complex chemical changes that provide a much improved material for tools, figurines and medicines, in a process akin to vulcanization, invented three thousand years later by Charles Goodrich.
James Goodyear left rubber on a hot stove overnight and invented vulcanization.
Therefore, the more expensive modern latex ulama balls are made by the traditional technique of using boiled rubber sap mixed with other ingredients required for vulcanization.
Ancient Mayans used objects made from the sap of the rubber tree in sports and rituals, but latex proved too unstable chemically to be of commercial value until 1839, when American inventor Charles Goodyear discovered the vulcanization process.
With vulcanization, crude natural rubber could be heated and chemically treated to make it not only more stable but also more pliable.
Rubber condoms only became available in the United States after the discovery of vulcanization technology in the 1830s.
But in 1839, Charles Goodyear invented vulcanization, the process that gives rubber its elasticity and bounce, and the Amazon rubber boom was on.
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