Silicone rubber is a very unique rubber product. You won’t see rubber silicone products as often as other rubbers, like styrene-butadiene or natural rubber, due to its specialized set of characteristics which are suitable for only a handful of applications. It is more expensive than its other rubber counterparts. For such applications, silicone is almost unmatched. It has the largest range of operable temperatures and has a very low toxicity compared to other rubbers. With such specialized traits, silicone proves itself to be one indispensible synthetic rubber.

Like neoprene and styrene-butadiene, silicone rubber is a synthetic compound produced from a chemical element. Silicon, the base of silicone, is found in approximately 28% of the Earth’s crust (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tables/elabund.html). Uses of silicon include ceramic brick, glass and concrete. It took the tinkering of a couple of scientists to turn silicon into silicone.

In the early 1930s, Corning Glass hired a chemist, James Franklin Hyde to research and experiment with silicon to create a resinous binder that could be used to insulate high temperature motors and generators. Hyde built on the research of Frederick Kipping, an English chemist who pioneered the research and method of polymerizing an organic compound of silicon in 1927. Kipping expanded the uses of silicon and is responsible for dubbing the silicon-based compound as “silicone.”

Hyde was able to successfully produced silicone, and word of this new high-temperature, synthetic compound spread. In 1942, Corning Glass and Dow Chemical Company began a program for the development and manufacture of silicones (http://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/01-4027-01.pdf). In time, they began manufacturing rubber silicone products like sealing compounds, wire insulation and aviation equipment. They even made the famous children’s toy “Silly Putty.”

The usefulness of silicone rubber prompted chemical companies like Wacker Chemie of Germany and Shin-Etsu of Japan to also begin mass production of this wondrous synthetic elastomer. As the market for silicone grew, so did a spectrum of potential uses for silicone. Today, rubber silicone products take the form of our protective cell phone casing, of automotive gaskets, and prosthetics. Sure, it’s not the most versatile rubber, but in suitable applications silicone is an incomparable elastomer.