Question

Discuss the drawback of natural rubber.

Answer 1

The drawbacks of natural rubber are as follows:
• It swells considerably in organic solvents and gradually disintegrates.
• It has little durability.
• When stretched to a greater extent, it suffers permanent deformation, because of the 'sliding' or slippage of some molecular chains over each other.
• It is weak: its tensile strength is only 200 kg/cm² .
• Natural rubber is brittle below 10 ^oC and above 50 ^oC, it becomes soft. Hence it is useful  only in limited temperature ranges.