In 1493, Spanish explorer Columbus led his team to the South American continent for the first time. Here, the Spaniards saw Indian children and young people playing a game, singing and throwing a small ball to each other. After landing, this small ball can bounce very high. If you hold it in your hand, you will feel sticky and have a smoky smell. The Spaniards also saw that the Indians put some white thick liquid on their clothes, so that they would not get wet when they wore it on rainy days; they also put this white thick liquid on their feet, so that water would not get their feet wet on rainy days. From this, the Spaniards initially understood the elasticity and waterproofness of rubber, but did not really understand the source of rubber.
In 1693, French scientist Lacan arrived in South America and saw the indigenous people playing this small ball again. After investigating the origin of this small ball, he learned that this small ball was made of the thick liquid that flowed out when cutting a tree called "rubber" by the Indians.
In 1736, French scientist Condamine brought back detailed information about rubber trees from Peru and published "A Brief Travelogue of the Interior of South America". The book detailed the origin of rubber trees, the method of collecting latex and the use of rubber, which attracted people's attention.
In 1763, Frenchman Mecca invented a solvent that can soften rubber.
In 1770, British chemist Priestler discovered that rubber can erase pencil marks.
In 1823, British man Mackintosh, like the Indians, applied thick white rubber liquid on cloth to make rainproof cloth, and sewed a "Mackintosh" waterproof cloak, which was the prototype of modern raincoats.
In 1852, American chemist Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped a jar of rubber and sulfur on the fire while doing an experiment. The rubber and sulfur flowed together after being heated to form a block of rubber, thus inventing the rubber vulcanization method. Goodyear's accidental behavior was a major invention in the rubber manufacturing industry. It removed a major obstacle to the application of rubber, making rubber a formal industrial raw material, and thus making it possible for many rubber-related industries to flourish. Subsequently, Goodyear used vulcanized rubber to make the world's first pair of rubber waterproof shoes.
In 1876, the British Wickham collected 70,000 rubber seeds from the tropical jungle of the Amazon River and sent them to the Royal Kew Botanical Gardens in London, England for cultivation. Then the rubber seedlings were transported to Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India and other places for planting and were successful.
In 1888, the British John Dunlop connected the two ends of the rubber tube and inflated it inside to invent the pneumatic tire. The rise of the automobile industry in 1895 aroused a huge demand for rubber tires, and the price of rubber soared.
In 1897, Huang Dele, director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, invented the continuous tapping method for rubber trees, which greatly increased the rubber yield. As a result, wild rubber trees became an important economic crop cultivated on a large scale.
In 1904, Dao Anren, a chieftain of the Dai ethnic group in Ganya (now Yingjiang County), Yunnan, China, bought 8,000 rubber seedlings from Singapore and brought them back to China to plant in Fenghuang Mountain, Xincheng, Yingjiang County, Yunnan Province, at 24° north latitude. Now only one rubber seedling remains.
In 1906-1907, He Shulin, an overseas Chinese from Qionghai, Hainan, introduced 4,000 rubber seeds from Malaysia and planted them in Hui County (now Qionghai City) and Dan County.
In 1915, the Dutchman Herton invented the rubber bud grafting method in Bogor Botanical Garden, Java, Indonesia, so that the asexual lines of excellent rubber trees can be propagated and promoted in large quantities.
In the late 1950s, Philips of the United States successfully developed solution styrene butadiene rubber (SSBR) using lithium-initiated anionic polymerization, and achieved industrial production in 1964. The industrial production of SSBR usually uses alkyl lithium, mainly butyl lithium as an initiator, alkanes or cycloalkanes as solvents, alcohols as terminators, and tetrahydrofuran as a random agent. However, due to the poor processing performance of SSBR, its application has not been developed rapidly. In the late 1970s, the requirements for tires became higher and higher, which put forward higher requirements for the structure and performance of rubber. In addition, the progress of polymerization technology has led to the rapid development of SSBR.
In the early 1980s, Dunlop in the UK and Shell in the Netherlands jointly developed new low rolling resistance SSBR products through polymer design technology. Shell and Dunlop Tire Company in the Netherlands jointly developed new SSBR products. Japan Synthetic Rubber Company and Bridgestone jointly developed new tin-coupled SSBR and other second-generation SSBR products, which marked that the production technology of SSBR has entered a new stage.
In 2003, the world's natural rubber production was 7.5357 million tons. The top five rubber producing countries in the world are Thailand, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and China. The total rubber production of the five countries is 6.2925 million tons, accounting for 83.5% of the world's total rubber production.