Externet Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Read that when rubber turns to a gooey, is because ozone acted on it... or was improperly vulcanized, or... solvents/chemicals nearby are guilty... Can a piece of that 'degraded' rubber 'infect ' healthy rubber kept nearby and deteriorate it ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StringJunky Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 (edited) Read that when rubber turns to a gooey, is because ozone acted on it... or was improperly vulcanized, or... solvents/chemicals nearby are guilty... Can a piece of that 'degraded' rubber 'infect ' healthy rubber kept nearby and deteriorate it ? Rubber is biodegradeable in the right conditions,so, if you have some rubber being affected by the bacteria that do this it seems feasible that they could migrate to uninfected stuff in the vicinity and affect that. Biodegradation of Natural Rubber and Related Compounds: Recent Insights into a Hardly Understood Catabolic Capability of Microorganisms Natural rubber latex is produced by over 2,000 plant species, and its main constituent is poly(cis-1,4-isoprene), a highly unsaturated hydrocarbon. Since 1914 there have been efforts to investigate microbial rubber degradation; however, only recently have the first proteins involved in this process been identified and characterized and have the corresponding genes been cloned. Analyses of the degradation products of natural and synthetic rubbers isolated from various bacterial cultures indicated without exception that there was oxidative cleavage of the double bond in the polymer backbone. http://aem.asm.org/content/71/6/2803.full Edit: Use link in next post. Edited January 9, 2017 by StringJunky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Externet Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StringJunky Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Sorry. If you look I joined up the the link twice. http://aem.asm.org/content/71/6/2803.full 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Externet Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 (edited) Thank you StringJunky. Edited : added ----> If bacteria are guilty; is it safe to say that rubber exposure to ultraviolet light would prevent vulcanized rubber degradation ? (It does not happen to tires as far as I know; but indoors kept rubber is prone to) The latex bands of my scuba spearguns are suggested to be kept away from sunlight. Could that be a goofy empirism ? Unless there is more reasons for rubber degradation... Edited January 9, 2017 by Externet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zztop Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Thank you StringJunky. Edited : added ----> If bacteria are guilty; is it safe to say that rubber exposure to ultraviolet light would prevent vulcanized rubber degradation ? (It does not happen to tires as far as I know; but indoors kept rubber is prone to) The latex bands of my scuba spearguns are suggested to be kept away from sunlight. Could that be a goofy empirism ? Unless there is more reasons for rubber degradation... UV is the ultimate "destructive agent" , so the answer is "no" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Externet Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 Thanks. So UV is not destructive to bacteria ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zztop Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Thanks. So UV is not destructive to bacteria ? Yes, it is. Problem is, it is also (very) destructive to your rubber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Externet Posted January 9, 2017 Author Share Posted January 9, 2017 Thanks. So at least two causes. Bacteria and ultraviolet. Rubber turned to gooey I have seen only indoors. Cracked rubber only outdoors. Hmmm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StringJunky Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 (edited) Thanks. So at least two causes. Bacteria and ultraviolet. Rubber turned to gooey I have seen only indoors. Cracked rubber only outdoors. Hmmm. Have you considered saltwater and uv acting in combination on the rubber? I read that the cracking is the long polymers cleaving into shorter chains. Edited January 9, 2017 by StringJunky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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