Latex in the context of Resin

A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials/Intermediate goods that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedstock, the term connotes these materials are bottleneck assets and are required to produce other products.

The term raw material denotes materials in unprocessed or minimally processed states such as raw latex, crude oil, cotton, coal, raw biomass, iron ore, plastic, air, logs, and water. The term secondary raw material denotes waste material which has been recycled and injected back into use as productive material.

Bark is the outermost layer of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines, and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner bark, which in older stems is living tissue, includes the innermost layer of the periderm. The outer bark on older stems includes the dead tissue on the surface of the stems, along with parts of the outermost periderm and all the tissues on the outer side of the periderm. The outer bark on trees which lies external to the living periderm is also called the rhytidome.

Products derived from bark include bark shingle siding and wall coverings, spices, and other flavorings, tanbark for tannin, resin, latex, medicines, poisons, various hallucinogenic chemicals, and cork. Bark has been used to make cloth, canoes, and ropes and used as a surface for paintings and map making. A number of plants are also grown for their attractive or interesting bark colorations and surface textures or their bark is used as landscape mulch.

A polymer (/ˈpɒlɪmər/) is a substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play essential and ubiquitous roles in everyday life. Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers. Their consequently large molecular mass, relative to small molecule compounds, produces unique physical properties including toughness, high elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a tendency to form amorphous and semicrystalline structures rather than crystals.

Polymers are studied in the fields of polymer science (which includes polymer chemistry and polymer physics), biophysics and materials science and engineering. Historically, products arising from the linkage of repeating units by covalent chemical bonds have been the primary focus of polymer science. An emerging important area now focuses on supramolecular polymers formed by non-covalent links. Polyisoprene of latex rubber is an example of a natural polymer, and the polystyrene of styrofoam is an example of a synthetic polymer. In biological contexts, essentially all biological macromolecules—i.e., proteins (polyamides), nucleic acids (polynucleotides), and polysaccharides—are purely polymeric, or are composed in large part of polymeric components.

Coated paper (also known as enamel paper, gloss paper, and thin paper) is paper that has been coated with a mixture of materials or a polymer to impart certain qualities to the paper, including weight, surface gloss, smoothness, or reduced ink absorbency. Various materials, including kaolinite, calcium carbonate, bentonite, and talc, can be used to coat paper for high-quality printing, such as that used in the packaging industry and in magazines.

The chalk or china clay is bound to the paper with synthetic viscosifiers, such as styrene-butadiene latexes and natural organic binders such as starch. The coating formulation may also contain chemical additives as dispersants, resins, or polyethylene to give water resistance and wet strength to the paper, or to protect against ultraviolet radiation.

Sap is a fluid transported in the xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.

Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separate substance, separately produced, and with different components and functions.

Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. Opium's main psychoactive alkaloids, primarily morphine, act on μ-opioid receptors, causing analgesia and addiction with long-term use leading to tolerance, dependence, and increased cancer risk. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated.

The English word for opium is borrowed from Latin, which in turn comes from Ancient Greek: ὄπιον (ópion), a diminutive of ὀπός (opós, "juice of a plant"). The word meconium (derived from the Greek for "opium-like", but now used to refer to newborn stools) historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies. The Mediterranean region holds the earliest archaeological evidence of human use of opium poppies dating back to before 5000 BCE, with cultivation beginning around 3400 BCE in Mesopotamia. Opium was widely used for food, medicine, ritual, and as a painkiller throughout ancient civilizations including Greece, Egypt, and Islamic societies up to medieval times.

A condom is a sheath-shaped barrier device used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy or a sexually transmitted infection (STI). There are both external condoms, also called male condoms, and internal (female) condoms.

The external condom is rolled onto an erect penis before intercourse and works by forming a physical barrier which limits skin-to-skin contact, exposure to fluids, and blocks semen from entering the body of a sexual partner. External condoms are typically made from latex and, less commonly, from polyurethane, polyisoprene, or lamb intestine. External condoms have the advantages of ease of use, ease of access, and few side effects. Individuals with latex allergy should use condoms made from a material other than latex, such as polyurethane. Internal condoms are typically made from polyurethane and may be used multiple times.

Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, caucho, or caoutchouc, as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds.

Types of polyisoprene that are used as natural rubbers are classified as elastomers. Currently, rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from the Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) or others. The latex is a sticky, milky and white colloid drawn off by making incisions in the bark and collecting the fluid in vessels in a process called "tapping". Manufacturers refine this latex into the rubber that is ready for commercial processing.

Rubber tapping is the process by which latex is collected from a rubber tree. The latex is harvested by slicing a groove into the bark of the tree at a depth of one-quarter inch (6.4 mm) with a hooked knife and peeling back the bark. Trees must be approximately six years old and six inches (150 mm) in diameter in order to be tapped for latex. A person who taps rubber is a rubber tapper.

Rubber tapping is not damaging to the forest, as it does not require the tree to be cut down in order for the latex to be extracted. Jungle rubber is essentially old secondary forest, strongly resembling the primary forest. Its species' richness is about half that of the primary forest. Michon and de Foresta (1994) found that sample jungle rubber sites contained 92 tree species, 97 lianas, and 28 epiphytes compared with 171, 89, and 63, respectively, in the primary forest, and compared with 1, 1, and 2 in monoculture estates. Thiollay (1995) estimated that jungle rubber supports about 137 bird species, against 241 in the primary forest itself. Jungle rubber is expected to resemble primary forest in its hydrological functions. Monoculture rubber tree plantations have far less of an environmental impact than other crops, such as coffee or especially oil palm.

Hevea brasiliensis, the Pará rubber tree, sharinga tree, seringueira, or most commonly, rubber tree or rubber plant, is a flowering plant belonging to the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, originally native to the Amazon basin, but is now pantropical in distribution due to introductions. It is the most economically important member of the genus Hevea because the milky latex extracted from the tree is the primary source of natural rubber.

In mycology, a lamella (pl.: lamellae), or gill, is a papery hymenophore rib under the cap of some mushroom species, most often agarics. The gills are used by the mushrooms as a means of spore dispersal, and are important for species identification. The attachment of the gills to the stem is classified based on the shape of the gills when viewed from the side, while color, crowding and the shape of individual gills can also be important features. Additionally, gills can have distinctive microscopic or macroscopic features. For instance, Lactarius species typically seep latex from their gills.

It was originally believed that all gilled fungi were Agaricales, but as fungi were studied in more detail, some gilled species were demonstrated not to be. It is now clear that this is a case of convergent evolution (i.e. gill-like structures evolved separately) rather than being an anatomic feature that evolved only once. The apparent reason that various basidiomycetes have evolved gills is that it is the most effective means of increasing the ratio of surface area to mass, which increases the potential for spore production and dispersal.

A balloon is a flexible membrane bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. For special purposes, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light sources. Modern day balloons are made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, and can come in many different colors. Some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig bladder. Some balloons are used for decorative purposes or entertaining purposes, while others are used for practical purposes such as meteorology, medical treatment, military defense, or transportation. A balloon's properties, including its low density and low cost, have led to a wide range of applications.

The rubber balloon was invented by Michael Faraday in 1824, during experiments with various gases. He invented them for use in the lab.

A dispersant or a dispersing agent is a substance, typically a surfactant, that is added to a suspension of solid or liquid particles in a liquid (such as a colloid or emulsion) to improve the separation of the particles and to prevent their settling or clumping.

Dispersants are widely used to stabilize various industrial and artisanal products, such as paints, ferrofluids, and salad dressings. The plasticizers or superplasticizers, used to improve the workability of pastes like concrete and clay, are typically dispersants. The concept also largely overlaps with that of detergent, used to bring oily contamination into water suspension, and of emulsifier, used to create homogeneous mixtures of immiscible liquids like water and oil. Natural suspensions like milk and latex contain substances that act as dispersants.

A glove is a garment covering the hand, with separate sheaths or openings for each finger including the thumb. Gloves protect and comfort hands against cold or heat, damage by friction, abrasion or chemicals, and disease; or in turn to provide a guard for what a bare hand should not touch.

Gloves are made of materials including cloth, knitted or felted wool, leather, rubber, latex, neoprene, silk, and (in mail) metal. Gloves of kevlar protect the wearer from cuts. Gloves and gauntlets are integral components of pressure suits and spacesuits.

An ink eraser is an instrument used to scrape away or chemically bleach ink from a writing surface. This is a more involved process than removing pencil markings. Pencil marks can be gradually adhered to natural rubber fragments by rubbing the mark with a pencil eraser (this action is what prompted Joseph Priestley to give solidified latex its common name). Ink, however, readily penetrates the fibers of most papers and is therefore more difficult to extract by mechanical action.

Older ink erasers are therefore small knives designed to scrape off the top few microns of a sheet of paper, removing the ink that had penetrated. In concert with bladed ink erasers, an eraser similar to those at the end of pencils was also used, with additional abrasives, such as sand, mixed into the rubber. Fibreglass ink erasers also work by abrasion. These erasers physically remove the ink and the paper it has marked from the larger sheet.