What is rubber?
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist. And I'm not. And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of Your everyday life.
Melissa:Okay, Jam. Before we get in today's chemistry lesson, I need to get a little background info.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Can you name some things that are made of rubber?
Jam:Things that are made of rubber, like Household objects?
Melissa:Anything. What can you think of?
Jam:Like, plunger A for some reason, Rubber ball.
Melissa:Rubber ball.
Jam:Kids toy kind of thing. There's gonna be more than that.
Melissa:There's definitely more than that. Some other things I thought of are, tires on cars.
Jam:Oh, duh. Totally. Yep.
Melissa:I also put bouncy ball soles of shoes sometimes.
Jam:Yes. Yes. Yes. Totally.
Melissa:Latex gloves.
Jam:Oh, right.
Melissa:Rubber gloves.
Jam:Uh-huh. Totally.
Melissa:And balloons are sometimes made of rubber.
Jam:Yes. Totally.
Melissa:Okay. So you've got that all those things, you can picture them?
Jam:Yes. I can picture them in my head.
Melissa:So what do you think those things are made of? Like, obviously, they're made of rubber, but what is it?
Jam:Yeah. I don't know if I know. I feel like Rubber and silicone and flexible plastics and all that probably blend together in my head. Like, I'm probably not
Melissa:Yep.
Jam:I bet I wouldn't really know what's actually what Yeah. Most of the time. But I know that there's a tree. It's a rubber tree.
Melissa:Mhmm. Had a similar experience to you.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So and then I asked Mason, my husband, engineer. So he had a similar, responses meet where we all kind of are like, yeah. What is rubber versus silicone versus Plastic.
Jam:Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Melissa:And that's kind of where this started. Our patron, Avishai b, he's a friend of ours, reaches out pretty consistently, And he was asking about a material called silicone rubber, and I realized that before I could talk about that, I needed to talk about Silicone and rubber. Ah. So today, we're gonna talk about what even is rubber.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Okay. And just a warning to some parents and a fun exciting thing for you. If you're currently listening with kids, we are going to talk about contraceptives towards the end of the episode as part of our fun facts. Okay. But towards the end of the episode as part of our fun facts.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:But for the most part, we'll avoid it.
Jam:K. Got it.
Melissa:Okay. So Here's a little background info, and then we'll dive deeper into the chemistry lesson.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Okay. This seems unrelated, But have you ever cut into a dandelion or another flower or maybe even a piece of lettuce and it oozes like white stuff?
Jam:I think I have experienced this on the dandelion side, but I don't know about lettuce.
Melissa:That's okay if you have another, but you have experienced it on the dandelion side.
Jam:I think so.
Melissa:Okay. That liquid is latex.
Jam:Oh, okay.
Melissa:Which is confusing because I thought of latex is like the stuff on gloves. Yeah. But latex is a liquid that is emitted by Trees and flower flowering plants is about 10% of flowering plants, will emit this liquid whenever it's wounded or broken as a defense mechanism. Okay. So, typically, it'll heal the wound.
Melissa:It's thought that possibly it, You know, any kind of insects that will hurt it, that it might be a defense mechanism against those.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And dandelions do it. So as soon as I was like, oh, dandelions. I've definitely seen that milky stuff come out of dandelions. Like, we played with them a lot when we were little kids. But more commonly, the rubber tree, which is, I'll try to say this, but I'll probably get it wrong.
Melissa:Hevia brazellinius.
Jam:K.
Melissa:Question mark. Not a biologist. Mhmm. Period. So all these plants will emit this liquid called latex.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And in the liquid, it has water, proteins, carbohydrates, but most Importantly, a polymer.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And just a quick review, we've talked about polymers a lot before, but a polymer is a Large molecule made up of a bunch of smaller molecules. In this case, it has 1 small molecule that's repeating. It's not like a variety, like a b see different molecules, a b c, a b c, a b c. This one's just 1. So just like a a a a a.
Melissa:Same thing repeating over and over. Oh, no. I wouldn't even thought that was a joke if you hadn't if you hadn't made that face. So the, this molecule is called 2 methyl 13 butadiene. If anyone's an organic chemistry student, that's probably the only person that'll mean anything to.
Melissa:You can pause and see how much you remember from Ochem. But, essentially, it's carbons. There are some double bonds. That's all you really need to know.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:It's non not really polar. It, well, I guess it has a little bit of polarity, but it It's similar in structure as a hydrocarbon to, like, oils because just carbons and hydrogens are the primary thing. So it doesn't have A huge polarity, and it's relatively nonpolar.
Jam:K.
Melissa:Okay. And, I was gonna say that, you know, we have we talked about how polymers are small molecules made or large molecules made up of several smaller molecules. Mhmm. Typically, this Polymer has between 1515,000 units of that molecule. Wow.
Melissa:So that's the numbers that we're talking about.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Okay. So that's latex, and I'm betting you're wondering what does that have to do with Rubber and gloves because that's just a liquid with a polymer in it.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Well, that polymer is the key to rubber.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:That polymer is called natural rubber, but it's also called isoprene. K. And, Essentially, you're going to isolate that polymer from the latex, suspension of the plant. So the milky liquid is a suspension, which means it has these Polymers floating in it. And similar to the way that, people collect maple syrup, they can tap it.
Melissa:Mhmm. And, you know, get the latex to come out. Yeah. And they'll take that fraction and use that, that, like, I guess fraction's not a good word. They'll take, like, a, we'll say, a container of that latex and isolate the polymer from within it.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:So, the polymer is called polyisoprene. The individual monomer is called isoprene. So poly many, Many isoprene.
Jam:Okay. Okay.
Melissa:Okay. So they tap it, they get the liquid out, and then, they isolate that polymer to be used in rubber. Okay. Before we talk about how they do that, I always think it's important to acknowledge indigenous knowledge and to recognize that A lot of times, indigenous communities knew about things before Western science really did. And in this case, that's true.
Melissa:A lot of, Indigenous populations in the South and Central Americas used latex to waterproof their clothes and shoes, and they even made rubber balls that were used in games across Central America and South America.
Jam:That's awesome.
Melissa:Know. Isn't that so cool? Yeah. I'm like, rubber's been around for so long.
Jam:Yeah. Seriously.
Melissa:So What western science, what modern, manufacturer does is they take that latex suspension. They treat it to keep bacterial growth out because it's from a plant. So can be bacteria supported in that environment, and then they will separate the polymer out using a centrifuge. Have you ever gotten to use a centrifuge?
Jam:No. But you've described it to me before.
Melissa:It's like they I think they can have different sizes of them, but the one that we use a lab in the lab a lot are like, Looks like a countertop appliance, almost like a fat short air fryer. Uh-huh. And you can open the lid, and there's a bunch of little slots free to put, like, test tubes in.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And they'll spin really, really fast. And through that spinning, the gravity acts on them And, maybe the centrifugal force.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:I don't know. I don't do physics. Mhmm. But it'll separate out, like, solids from the liquid. It kinda, like, gets, different Fractions is usually what we'll call it.
Melissa:Uh-huh. And so they'll use that to concentrate the isoprene down from being about The 25 to 40% isoprene within the latex suspension to 60% of isoprene within or polyisoprene within the latex suspension.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So you have a much higher concentration of the polymer, the natural rubber polymer, concentrated down.
Jam:K.
Melissa:And that is essentially what you'll use to make things like Gloves. So that it's like a liquid type polymer. It's in the suspension. They'll treat it with different chemicals, and you can, like, Dip molds into it to make gloves, for example, and they'll usually wash it to try to get anything other than the polymer that's Soluble in water out.
Jam:So they dip a mold in and then take it out, and so they got a really thin layer. Mhmm. And then It dries and becomes
Melissa:So I think they heat it. There I wasn't incredibly clear on the dipping process. Okay. Just that there's a process they can dip it and they can heat it so that it's not the liquid anymore, and then they sometimes will coat it in a slurry to get that powder on it to keep it from being too sticky.
Jam:Slurry. One of those great words.
Melissa:Yeah. So, but that's not your main lesson. So that's kind of like An aside is that they have this more, like, highly concentrated in liquid, and they'll go through, like, a manufacture processing where they usually use dipping, but It's primarily in that state, the original polyisoprene from the tree rubber state.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And when it's in that state, if you heat it up, it can melt. And if it gets cold, it gets solid like most things that are At room temperature, heated up, they get more liquidy. If you cool them down, they get more solid.
Jam:K.
Melissa:So that's your natural rubber Or sometimes that's called latex. So latex glove would be made of that. Other things you can think of made of latex come from that catheters, balloons. They're often in that phase of latex.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Okay. But still, that's very different than the rubber of, like, car tires.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Like, a rubber glove feels really different than a car tire.
Jam:Which specifically car tires, I don't know I don't know more details in this really, but I know that they specifically are vulcanized, which is I think Makes a big difference.
Melissa:It does make a big difference.
Jam:But I don't remember what that is. Just remember learning about that in science one time.
Melissa:That's your big chemistry lesson for today. So up till now, we had a lot of Background information. Uh-huh. Now we get into how that weird latex polymer that makes gloves and balloons turns into anything like a car tire.
Jam:Got it. It's way like, tougher and hardy and all that stuff.
Melissa:Doesn't really move. Doesn't really flow when it gets heated up. It's totally different.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:So this is your big chemistry lesson. So everything up to this point was just kinda like, here's a little background on what latex is and where it comes from, and then now we're gonna talk about how that turns into essentially vulcanized rubber.
Jam:Forget everything you know about that I just said.
Melissa:No. Don't forget it. Oh,
Jam:I saw this video the other day that said it was like I was like, forget everything you know. It's, like, the beginning of recipes from like that. But then the guy watching it just goes, like, like, he gets
Melissa:an ex flanks.
Jam:He has an expression, and his his Bates just slowed goes like like he just
Melissa:Forgot.
Jam:Literally forgot everything he knew. It was, like, one of those things where it's like, You gotta really hold on for the joke to land, and also his ability to do a face that looks like he forgot everything was, like, Definitely the punch line.
Melissa:That reminds me of, like there's an idea in knowledge that, like, oh, we start from a blank slate of this thing, but nobody really starts from a blank state slate. They take in knowledge from other places. Yeah. And then you use New knowledge to decide if you're gonna keep the knowledge you got or not.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:So I think that that's funny on a different On a on a from an academic point, that's like hitting on a theory of knowledge. So
Jam:That's great.
Melissa:Good job.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Okay. So let's go back to our original one of our original analogies that we ever used for polymers, which is Beaded necklaces.
Jam:Oh, yeah. Okay.
Melissa:So, like, imagine, you know, Mardi Gras beads or pearls, something that's just like a repeating unit sort of strung together.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Mhmm. So what we normally have in our latex polymer is a bunch of those Polymers that are they're sort of stuck together, like, maybe they've twisted around each other a little bit in the coagulation phase where they come together and they make that Love type texture.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:But they're not really stuck together. So imagine it, like, sort of just like a mass of You took a bunch of Mardi Gras beads or you took a bunch of pearl necklaces, and you threw them on the ground.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And they're there, and they might get tangled up a little bit So they're kind of in a group, but they're not really connected to each other. They're each sort of an independent unit. Now imagine if you took something like pipe cleaners or zip ties and you just started making connections between those different necklaces.
Jam:Right. Okay.
Melissa:That would change the properties of them a lot. Right?
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:You wouldn't be able to separate them out as much. Right. You wouldn't be able to they wouldn't probably flow away from each other if you heated them up. Mhmm. That's Sort of a different I'm going back into my away from my analogy.
Melissa:That's essentially what happens to vulcanized rubber.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So all the individual polymers are the polyisoprene that already exist.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And if you add sulfur to that I'm sure there's a more complicated chemical process, but sulfur is the big deal. If you add sulfur to that, you can make what they call cross links.
Jam:K.
Melissa:Which are essentially little bridges or little bond chains of atoms that force those polymers to now be connected to each other.
Jam:K.
Melissa:It's similar to what happens in curly hair.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:So we've talked about it on on the episode where we talked about hair before. So you have these cross links that will start to hold the polymers in place, that are starting to make that mass of Beads or necklaces into 1.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And you can imagine if you have more cross links, then you would get those to be closer and closer together and more tightly held.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:But if you have less cross links, there's still some wiggle room. Like, you can stretch out the beads, but they'll come back together kind of
Jam:thing. Right.
Melissa:That's essentially vulcanized rubber. You take polyisoprene polymers. You add sulfur, which by itself isn't very good at crosslinking, so you have to do some other chemical stuff to it, but sulfur is the main guy.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And you make sulfur bridges or sulfur Cross links that hold these polymers together in a really rigid way.
Jam:K.
Melissa:And so We have, like, a sturdy rubber now.
Jam:K.
Melissa:And that is your vulcanized rubber.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:But even within your vulcanized rubber, you have, like, a range. You know, rubber bands, they have less cross links, and they're more easily spread and snap back together, Whereas, probably, like, something like a tire has more cross links, so it is losing its elasticity a little bit at that time.
Jam:Right. K.
Melissa:So that's how you get vulcanized rubber.
Jam:That is so crazy. And, also, I feel like somewhere in there, if you had really made me guess, I might have guessed sulfur because I feel like that That little tidbit is probably all I ever learned. Like, hey. They figured out vulcanizing rubber. They used sulfur to do it, but they probably never explained deeper than that.
Melissa:Yeah. Like, what the sulfur does.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:You know?
Jam:Dang. Interesting. More cross links, more more kind of rigid less elasticity to it. Mhmm. Interesting.
Melissa:And also the lengths bit of carbon or of sulfur atoms, you can have between, like, 18 sulfur atoms to make those cross links.
Jam:K.
Melissa:So the shorter cross links are more heat resistant. So and tires are very heat resistant. Didn't.
Jam:Yeah. Gotta be.
Melissa:The longer cross links are, more elastic, and then the more cross links make it more stable as well.
Jam:Okay. Interesting.
Melissa:I know.
Jam:Man, that is nuts.
Melissa:I got so excited that I stopped looking at my notes. So let me real quick make sure I covered everything that I wanted to cover. Yes. I think I did.
Jam:K.
Melissa:Yep. I think so. The only other thing is a unique thing about rubber because of those Cross links holding the polymer together is as it heats up and the energy is put in, it gets smaller and condenses Instead of flowing more. So that's another thing that the crosslinking does. It sets it apart from its original Polymer state is those cross links make it so that where as it heats up, it's It gets almost more stable.
Melissa:It, like, shrinks up instead of heating up and flowing out.
Jam:Okay. Interesting. So it would be Maybe you can have a smaller amount of it in terms of, like, what we could see with our eyes, but it might be might weigh more, could be more dense. So say you compared it to, like, A slightly less cross linked version?
Melissa:Yeah. But it's less about the density and more about the fact that because that happens, It can be used in really high heat environments like cars.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:So there's, like, rubber belts in cars Mhmm. Mhmm. That They don't melt and deform and mess up because as they get applied to heat, they just stay sturdy.
Jam:Oh, I see.
Melissa:They almost get sturdier. You know?
Jam:Yeah. Interesting.
Melissa:Because they're that elastic, they and they are heat resistant. They don't deform. So rubber is a big reason well, vulcanized rubber is a big reason why we can have cars.
Jam:Wow. That is crazy. Now here's another question that we're all wondering. How connected is Vulcanizing rubber to the Vulcan people?
Melissa:I have no idea. Yeah. I've I don't know why it's called that.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:In all the little videos I watched, they were like, Goodyear for the tires, Accidentally or on purpose, not clear. Accidentally dumped sulfur and this latex together, and it made a cool thing. And that's how
Jam:That is so funny.
Melissa:We made it. But I don't know if that's really true because, Also, sulfur by itself isn't the best crosslinker. Like, you have to have other things that help it. But maybe if it You let it go long enough. But, apparently, he was like and then it made this really hard rubbery texture on my stove, and that's how I guessed it.
Melissa:Yeah. But he says it was on purpose.
Jam:Right. I also feel like it's one of those things where the story could be, like, something they kinda wanna cover up. Like, yeah, we were Illegally dumping byproducts of, things we were doing, and we happen to dump a bunch of sulfur and a bunch of latex together Into a big old into a canyon or something like that, into a ditch. And we came back later, and we're like, hey.
Melissa:He said it was on his stove and that it was on purpose. But Yeah. Listen. This is just if it's an accident, this is one more instance where accidents aren't terrible, and it's okay to make accidents. Yeah.
Melissa:Just pay attention to what happens afterwards.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:So that's how works.
Jam:I guess the difference between an accident and science would be, like, Are you trying to then, like like, observe and replicate and that kind of thing? Like, are you gonna end up Continuing to follow the scientific method or you're gonna leave it as an accident?
Melissa:Yeah. And Did your accident fail, or did you figure out what it was? That's the difference between science or
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Did you give up after the accident, or did you observe it?
Jam:Yeah. It was an accident all the way up until he said, hey. This is vulcanized. Now now it's science.
Melissa:Yeah. So in all the videos, they didn't explain the vulcanization they or why it's called vulcanized, but they
Jam:Did they say when ish that happened? I mean, not not that you need to remember that.
Melissa:But Yes. They did, but I don't remember. But I bet I could pull it up pretty quickly because I have all of my little references Right here.
Jam:My guess is that that there's no way it happened after Star Trek already existed, but it'd be so cool if it was
Melissa:18/39 by Charles Goodyear, after whom the tire company was named. And this is, from chemistry world, which is the Royal Society of Chemistry, Which is in Europe, and so they spell tire with a y.
Jam:Wow. Do they still spell it that way? I don't know. Or was it like that was how it was?
Melissa:No. I think they still spell it that way. Wow. They also anytime we use, like, Analyze or, they use an s instead of a z.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:Because I submit to that magazine or that, like, It's not a magazine. I submit to the peer reviewed journal that's a part of that. Uh-huh. Gamester World is the magazine associated with it, and they have, like, a template. Mhmm.
Melissa:Mhmm. And the template will autocorrect my z's to s's.
Jam:Oh, interesting. What's funny too is that we we mostly did that, But we didn't we're a little choosy. Like, for instance, advertisement. We obviously pronounce it differently than UK or UK friends, but we still kept the s. We didn't we didn't swap that into a z.
Jam:Like, what's the deal with that? Like, we can't even we're not even consistent with our stuff.
Melissa:English is a confusing language. I honestly feel bad for people learning English. Oh, yeah. But that's a tangent.
Jam:100%.
Melissa:And we're gonna get back on topic.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Deal. Okay. So I think that that's everything, but I wanted you to try to explain back to me the process of Polymer cross linking.
Jam:Okay. Got it. So when you initially I'm gonna use your analogy. It was helpful, and it's the only way I can think of it in my brain now. Okay.
Jam:So Each of these polymer units is like a bead a necklace necklace made of beads, and so you've got a bunch of them. And in the case of the non vulcanized latex rubber stuff Mhmm. We've just got these a bunch of these polymers, but they kinda tangle themselves together. It makes just enough of a structure. We can do some stuff very Elastic, very flexible, all that kind of stuff, but not, but it just kinda happens to tangle that way.
Jam:Yeah. Doesn't need a ton of help. Doesn't need us to add a bunch of stuff and do it.
Melissa:Does that naturally we can control it by adding agents to make it go faster or keep it from happening.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:But It'll also happen on its own.
Jam:Okay. And
Melissa:that's how it heals the trees up.
Jam:Got it. So we end up If we want to achieve a different result and have those necklaces be create more of a Rigid structure.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:We need to actually connect them together
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:In some way. Instead, I was hoping that they kinda tangled together on their own. The beats get a little twisted or whatever. We want them to actually get connected.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:And so it'd be almost like, this wouldn't be perfect because it's made of the same material. But if you have a chain it's like a chain necklace Mhmm. And you get, you know, that little link at the end of the chain that links it to itself.
Melissa:Oh, yeah.
Jam:Whatever. Like, that's, like, a different little shape. What if it's like you have these perfect loops of of chain, But then the the link things are actually the sulfur, and they can link from 1 to another instead of to itself.
Melissa:I think that that is It makes a little bit of sense, but the one thing it doesn't capture is the links happen all over, not, like, at a specific place. Right. So something like in the middle. Or
Jam:Yeah. I'm saying instead of closing its own chain, if you have a link like that that clicks chains together.
Melissa:So it, like, does side to side. Yeah. It does end to end. It does top of 1 to middle of another all over the place. Yep.
Melissa:Yep. Okay. Yeah.
Jam:Something like that. Same thing as pipe cleaner. But, basically, you need to connect them in a way where there's where they really are pretty stuck together. Yeah. And especially if you do that in more than 1 place and multiple places across, you know, in each if each polymer Loop or chain or necklace is connected to other ones in multiple places.
Jam:It gets more and more of this structure
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:To it which makes it more stable and less elastic y. Mhmm. More rigid and also just more durable, it sounds like too.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And in the, the chemical level in this case, we it's it needs human interference first to happen, And the our our friend Goodyear figured out that sulfur Mhmm. Was a good choice.
Melissa:Silver's the chain.
Jam:The chain. It's the thing. The the chain, the pipe cleaner, the whatever added in that does that and links them together. Yep. And even though we've got essentially the same polymer that's making up a huge Percentage of this substance because of that structural change change it makes for really different applications Yeah.
Jam:Including Tires and stuff like that. It makes it way more heat resistant.
Melissa:Yep.
Jam:Am I missing anything there?
Melissa:I don't think you're missing anything. The one thing I was gonna say is, I think, probably the Best analogy for sulfur is probably something like zip ties because you can make them longer or shorter, and we didn't quite Capture that in the chain link.
Jam:Yeah. Okay.
Melissa:We didn't quite capture that in the chain link. Even the pipe cleaners, I guess, you could make Sure or longer. I was trying to think if there's anything else. Even just tying them with a string. Mhmm.
Melissa:Because if they're longer chains, they can move around more.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And you would get that if you made a bigger loop with a zip tie than a tight tight loop with a zip tie.
Jam:Is the sulfur making a loop also, or is
Melissa:it Just a bridge.
Jam:Yeah. Bridge. Okay. Okay.
Melissa:So that does make the the zip tie less good of an analogy.
Jam:But it but the fact that you can make it longer or shorter yeah. Okay. So And that changes the structure of it as well, making Yeah. The sulfur longer or shorter.
Melissa:It just changes the properties.
Jam:Yeah. So if it's longer, does that make it more elastic or less?
Melissa:Yes. So, shorter cross Slings are more heat resistant, and longer cross links are more elastic. That's what I copied from the Royal Society of Chemistry. They did a a really good short podcast about this, but they don't go into some of the, like oh, if you don't know what a palmer or a crosslink is. Yeah.
Melissa:But it is really good. Like, with this background information, you could go listen to it and get a lot out of it even that I didn't talk about.
Jam:I I love this because It actually once you get into it, it's actually intuitive. You really think about what if I did have a bunch of these Mhmm. Instead of loops. And what if I did have some that were linked together with a really short connector? Yeah.
Jam:A little pretty short bridge. I have a when I've had some that were connected with a really long bridge and the ways that it would maybe affect the way it moves and stuff. And so I'll I feel like there's sometimes where The way that these things happen at the molecular level Mhmm. It actually doesn't necessarily make an intuitive change Yeah. To us.
Jam:But in this case, I love it because it's like, I was I'm it's gonna be easy for me to remember because having a shorter bridge Feels intuitive. They would make a more rigid, more heat resistant, less elastic structure. Yep. Having a longer bridge seems like it would have more room
Melissa:Lucy. Yeah.
Jam:Too would be elastic and stuff. So I like this a lot.
Melissa:Feels like this is a kid's toy. Like, we're 1 step away. I'm like, K'nex is kind of similar
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Where the longer ones are weaker and easier to break, but those short ones, they're like you could step on them and they stay together.
Jam:You know? Uh-huh.
Melissa:Or, like, LEGOs you're you've I don't know. I'm like, I surely, we could make a vulcanized rubber based kids' toy that would be really fun to Play with. Yes. We're, like, 1 step away
Jam:from it. Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:But, yes, I agree. It did feel kind of intuitive. And I did I didn't explicitly say this, I don't think, but part of what happens when you stretch like an a rubber band, for example, is those Polymers come uncoiled. So, like, the necklaces stretch to their fullest.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But you're not able to really break the sulfur cross links. That's why it snaps back.
Jam:Got it. Got it.
Melissa:Probably some of them start breaking once it loses its elasticity. But Yeah. And then, There is a cool experiment you can do. I linked to, a Scientific American article where they walked through this experiment, but, essentially, it can expose A stretched out rubber band to heat, and it'll shrink up.
Jam:Ah. So that's kind
Melissa:of a fun one.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:Okay. Are you you did a good job Explaining it. Are you ready for some fun facts?
Jam:Oh, yes. I'm ready. I love fun
Melissa:facts. Okay. So have I know you have heard of A latex allergy because your wife has 1. Mhmm. Several people have latex allergies.
Jam:Especially if they've been supposed to a lot, like, in the medical field. Mhmm. They just slowly
Melissa:Be Oh, do they? Mhmm. I didn't know that. Yeah. But here's what I do know.
Melissa:The allergy is actually in the proteins that are in the original latex serum.
Jam:K.
Melissa:And when they are going through the manufacturing process so they I talked about how they treated it for, bacteria. They also try to wash it with water. So because most of the proteins are water soluble, and that way they're able to try to get some of those proteins off. So depending I read a whole paper from, the journal. If I think it was of allergy allergy and Oh, I can't remember.
Melissa:It's not what I normally use because, you know, I'm not an allergist or a doctor Mhmm. Or that kind of doctor. I am a doctor. Yes.
Jam:You are a doctor.
Melissa:And a doctor. But it was from the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Jam:Woah.
Melissa:And they talked about how different manufacturing processes will cause different types of latex to be more irritating to someone with a latex allergy. Because if they are they focus on removing the protein in their their, manufacturing process, then Because they've removed the protein, people will have less of an intense allergic reaction.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:There's just less of the allergen in there.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Melissa:So that I thought that was fun fact. And the other fun fact is so I I was thinking Actually, that contraceptives, condoms made of latex. For some reason, I thought that they were plastic. In my mind, I don't think I realized that I mean, they're called rubbers, I guess, but I don't think I realized that they were literally made of latex, which comes from a plant.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But, The latex polymer, because it's relatively nonpolar, can easily be, dissolved by other nonpolar things. And that's why If you have, latex contraceptive and you have an oil based lubrication, it will dissolve Because similar things dissolve one another Right. It will literally dissolve the latex of that contraceptive.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:I know.
Jam:That's crazy.
Melissa:And a similar, but I guess more PG example of this is, A lot of oranges have limonene or limonene. Uh-huh. It's like that orangey good smelling oil that, like, comes out of the orange peel. You can use that to pop a, latex balloon
Jam:Oh, interesting.
Melissa:Because it's also in oil. And there's a whole video that I linked to on the American Chemical Society where she tries different oils
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:To see if they can pop balloons. And then she got, Like, a party balloon that was supposed to be made of, like, semi vulcanized rubber. Uh-huh. That's where I said I wasn't sure how clear it was. Yeah.
Melissa:Is that, like, water balloons are Not vulcanized at all, but I guess there's a level of vulcanization to, like, stronger balloons maybe.
Jam:Okay. Got it.
Melissa:But they're harder to pop with oil. So she tried to pop it at that one with the lime in it, and she
Jam:was like, it shouldn't work. And it did take longer, and then it popped.
Melissa:And she goes, well, guess I got cheap party balloons. So That's true. Think it would be eventually able to make a hole in them because, you know, there is still that polymer there. But Right. Isn't that interesting?
Jam:Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. That's nuts. Also, good job talking about that topic while being Really good at the vocab and the word choice.
Melissa:Thanks.
Jam:I was gonna go right over some and right at the right level for others.
Melissa:For others. Yeah. I was like, how can I talk about this in a way that Yeah? Children are gonna be okay.
Jam:Yep.
Melissa:So that's it.
Jam:Wow. That's cool.
Melissa:That's all I learned about rubber and latex. I just don't think I ever thought that, like, latex gloves and rubber tires were made from the same base thing, and also it's plant based. Yeah. Is from a plant.
Jam:Right. Yeah. It's crazy because I think, I think we all think of, like, so many of those types of materials being fully Synthetic or, like, roll close to it? You know?
Melissa:Like I just put it in the plastic bin.
Jam:Yeah. Full on, like, man made, but it's like, oh, no. This is So much of this art exists in nature. It just needs to be, like Yes. Harnessed and tweaked and adjusted and whatever else.
Jam:And Then we get the super cool material that's super useful and awesome. And thank you, Nature.
Melissa:Yeah. And I wondered, I'm assuming, obviously, you can dissolve the Non vulcanized rubber. So that I would think that that's not, like, a forever type of plastic that takes a lot of breakdown. I think if you can dissolve it in oil, I think. But then I was wondering, what about vulcanized rubber?
Melissa:Is that, like, harder to break down, so it acts more like plastic in the environment. So I don't have answers to that. That's a question that I'm Thinking about, but I didn't have time to research before today's episode. And then the other thing I'm thinking about is looking into silicone and what that is as opposed to Plastic.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:They're all polymers, which is why it makes sense we put them in a similar bin, but some are nature based and able to dissolve in oil, and others are man made or man Weird. So
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
Melissa:Yeah. So that's what you can expect to be coming up in the next few episodes, hopefully. I mean, it all on how many, really good resources I can get because I try not to make an episode unless I'm confident in the, resources that they're Peer reviewed or from a trustworthy source.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Right. Like, the American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and other peer reviewed journals are mostly what I focus on.
Jam:Nice. So
Melissa:that's it. So now let's talk about a happy thing from this week.
Jam:Sweet. I'm down. Do you
Melissa:have a happy thing you wanna share?
Jam:Sure. I've got one. So, you know, one thing that's nice, actually, right now in Texas, for some reason, the beginning of our summer has been milder. You know? Yeah.
Jam:And pretty awesome. So May, we just had, like, I think, like, 2 days that I remember were at were at surpassed 90 degrees outside Fahrenheit, which is, like, rare. I mean, honestly, we usually have a bunch of those in May.
Melissa:Yep.
Jam:So We had that only twice that I can remember. Someone might correct me, but in in general, still way more mild temperatures. Then even a couple of days in June have been kinda mild, which is interesting. What's funny about that is we hadn't had our 1st, like, hangout in the pool. You know, we have a pool.
Jam:Mhmm. And it's kind of we had a love hate relationship with it, but We hadn't had our 1st dip in the pool until we did that with you guys Mhmm. You and Mason about a week and a half ago or so Mhmm. Which is super fun. And then last this past weekend, we did our 1st hang on the pool with Em and I and both the kids Yes.
Jam:For the for this year. And so
Melissa:that, your younger child's 1st time to go swimming?
Jam:1st time swimming. Mhmm.
Melissa:That's so Sadie.
Jam:It was fun. It was it was pretty cold. The water hasn't really warmed up very much yet, but it was a lot of fun. And our our oldest, You know, he kinda remembers playing in the pool before, but he can do more things, and he enjoys it more now and stuff. We just had a kinda fun family pool time.
Jam:Oh, I love that. Day, and it was great. So that was my happy thing.
Melissa:That yeah. The mildness of the summer, it has meant for less pool. Like, one time I was gonna get in the pool. It was really hot. And by the time I changed my swimsuit, came back out, it was raining.
Jam:Yeah. Oh, there you go. Yep. Yeah.
Melissa:Happened, like, every day.
Jam:We've had a lot of rain.
Melissa:Yes. We have. And, actually, my husband's name is from Amarillo, and it's rained so much there that the it's, like, been declared a disaster, I think, Technically, but they have relief coming in. And Wow. There's so much flooding that, like, whole streets of businesses have shut down.
Melissa:And they showed me a picture of you can tell it's a street with a gutter, and there are fish swimming in.
Jam:My gosh. That's crazy.
Melissa:It's wild.
Jam:They're just infrastructure is not used to that much water that much that quickly, that frequently. Wow. That's crazy.
Melissa:And they similarly, I know that there's a lake in California. This is so wild to me.
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:But it used to not be a lake. Uh-huh. And they they had drained out all the water and turned it into an Agricultural center.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:And now because there's so much rainfall over the winter and into the spring in California That it basically turned back into a lake, and they're anticipating even more flooding and the water rising as a snowpack melts. Wow. Which is crazy.
Jam:Like, the lake is like, I'm back.
Melissa:The lake's taken back its territory.
Jam:I'm back, dude.
Melissa:Well and because we talked about that, my husband was like, oh, do you think Amarillo used be like, and that's why it's flooding. I was like, who knows? Hope not. Golly. Honestly.
Melissa:So, it's been, like, a kind of nice in terms of weather. Like, 2 or 3 days, I've been like, oh, it's really hot. And within hours, it's cloudy again that day.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But it's also kinda scary because we're Our infrastructure is not designed for that. We've had a lot of hail pretty late into the season. So Yeah. Surprising.
Jam:Yeah. Definitely surprising.
Melissa:I saw somebody post a hail that was, like, Bigger than their fist. Like, they were pulling in their palm, and it was, like, bigger than their palm. That was in, Argyle, which is town, like, 20 minutes south
Jam:of here. And, obviously, we're used to that big hail. Like, some play parts of the country don't get that near as bad, but Yeah. Texas, we do. In the winds, the tornadoes, whatever else.
Jam:But, like, usually, it's, like, Definitely done by now. Mhmm. And, like, we get some rainy Aprils, and usually the 1st chunk of May might be rainy. But by the end of May, we're Dries a bone. You know?
Jam:And so it's, like, very strange for this to keep going on.
Melissa:The frequency that's happened. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was a tangent again. We're kinda tangential today, I guess.
Melissa:Whoops. Well, here's my fun fact. It's actually not a it's kind of a fun fact. Uh-huh. It's actually more of like a Help me.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So I travel a lot for work. Uh-huh. And I've been trying not to check a bag because, you know, the less you can spend, the better.
Jam:Corolli.
Melissa:But I feel like my hair products take up a lot of space, like a hairdryer or a curling wand. So even if I'm gonna go curly, it's nice to have the diffuser, Which fits on my hairdryer, you know, or if I want it to be more straight, I like to have a little body, so I'll do a little bit of waves. So I always have to bring some kind of hair tools. Uh-huh. I recently learned from your wife about heatless curling
Jam:Oh, right.
Melissa:Where you, like, put a little tube on your head. Uh-huh. You know, I've been doing that. So those of you watching on YouTube today, there is a little I used heatless curl in my hair. What's nice about it is I could sleep on my hair, and then it looks pretty normal.
Jam:Yep. A lot
Melissa:of times, I have to save on my hair as a whole thing to get it styled the next day. Yeah. And these clips that were very popular back in my day Mhmm. Are back, the claw clips. Uh-huh.
Melissa:And so I'm I've been having fun kind of experimenting, seeing, like, are there work appropriate hairstyles I could use without bringing a bunch of stuff.
Jam:Totally.
Melissa:So for our listeners who are good at heatless styling or who Have good tips and tricks. Mhmm. Have hair tutorials they like. Send them my way.
Jam:Or maybe even some travel savvy
Melissa:Yep.
Jam:Folks or both, I guess, or whatever. May I have some tricks up their sleeve too? May I
Melissa:have some tricks? One thing I thought was I could probably bring my diffuser part and hope it fits on the hotel hair dryer? But who knows? Yeah. And I think for the their conference I'm going to soon, we're actually staying in dorm rooms, so there won't be even a hotel hairdryer.
Jam:Right. Dang it.
Melissa:So any tips and tricks y'all can give me? I've been having a lot of fun. It's it's also fun that these claw clips are back. I'm like, oh, yeah. 1990.
Melissa:Hello. Yeah. Because maybe it's, like 1997, but, I left it in high school, and I totally forgot about them. So Yeah. I'd love the any tips tricks.
Melissa:That's been what I've been doing lately.
Jam:That's a great idea. I mean, we get some really cool ideas from you guys and stuff like that in general, but about episodes, but, yeah, putting a putting a request out there.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:A good idea.
Melissa:That's my request.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:I'm sure people have good tricks. We listen to a lot of people who like to solve things. So
Jam:Yes. Yes.
Melissa:Awesome. Well, thanks for being excited about rubber and latex and the fact that it comes from a plant, which I was I I knew, but I I didn't really know what that meant. You know? So it was a really fun journey, and I really enjoyed it.
Jam:Yeah. Well, thank you for teaching us. That was definitely cool. I did not I mean, I guess I had a vague idea about Plant involvement because of the rubber tree thing, but Yeah. That's kinda all I knew, really.
Jam:So thank you for teaching us. That was awesome. Definitely. And if you out there have a question, idea, thought, Something you think might be chemistry. Please reach out to us.
Jam:Let us know. We'd love to hear it. Reach out to us on our website. That is chem for your life dotcom. That's kim, for your life.com to share your thoughts and ideas.
Jam:If you'd like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, Go to patreon.com/chem for your life or tap the link in our show notes or the description of the video to join our super cool community of patrons. If you're not able to do that, you can still help us by subscribing on your favorite podcast app, reading and writing a review on Apple Podcasts, or subscribing on YouTube because that also helps us to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:And your review might get a shout out on one of the bonus episodes.
Jam:That's right.
Melissa:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Coleenie and Jam Robinson. Jam Robinson is our producer, and this episode was made possible by our financial supporters on Patreon. It seriously means so much to us that you wanna help make chemistry accessible to even more people. We cannot describe how thankful we are and how much that's allowed us to keep this show going. Those supporters are Avishai B, who helped come up with the idea for today's episode, Brie m, Brian k, Chris and Claire s, Chelsea b, Derek l, Emerson w, Hunter r, Jacob t, Christina g, Lynn s, Melissa p, Nicole c, Nelly s, Steven b, Shadow, Suzanne s, Timothy p, and Venus r.
Melissa:Thank you again for everything you do to make chemistry for your life happen.
Jam:And if you'd like to learn more about today's chemistry lesson and check out some of the references that Melissa mentioned during the episode. You can look at the references in our show notes or in the description of the video. Yay chemistry.
Melissa:Yay chemistry. I was I always feel like that needs to be filled in with something.
