A small river steamboat from Zhenhai Port slowly docked at the Yongan Port Wharf, and the workers on the wharf unloaded a lot of packaged goods with the assistance of steam booms. Beside them, seven or eight wagons were waiting impatiently, and the coachmen, with their bills of lading, snatched up some of the goods they needed—rubber and ether—and drove them toward a factory not far away.

The workers occupy a fairly large area, most of which is built on spacious and bright brick factories. At this time, many workers in the enterprise, named "Yongan Rubber Products Factory" (the Ministry of Industry and Commerce holds 70% of the shares, the East Coast Company holds 20% of the shares, and the New China Development Team holds 10% of the shares), are sitting in front of the workbench, carefully busy.

They were intently processing the raw film, and the source of the raw film was New Huaxia Island. Since the East Coast people planted more than 3,000 rubber tree seedlings and seeds in the mountains near Xinhua Port many years ago, the survival rate of rubber trees is not high due to the climate, environment and poor care. Later, I had no choice but to change places and transplant them, and so far, there are about less than 800 rubber trees near Xinhuagang that have grown one after another, and have reached the rubber tapping period.

The mucus secreted by a certain cell in the inner layer of the bark of the rubber tree is the raw material for the "latex" needed by the people of the East Coast. Local collectors take out knives or axes and make incisions in the bark of the trees, and the liquid from the incisions is collected into containers fixed to the trees. These collected liquids cannot be used directly, and must be properly diluted before adding acetic acid to make a gel. Finally, there is the process of heating and smoking. This can be used initially.

The East Coast people didn't know anything about these processing techniques at first. Because no one understands this knowledge, they have gradually found some ways to process rubber after years of continuous exploration and practice. For example, analyzing the components of the liquid flowing out of the rubber tree, such as how to remove the impurities in the latex, such as how to make zuò raw rubber, etc. - among them, the production of zuò raw rubber is the most critical process.

The maker usually takes a stick coated with a layer of white latex from the small bucket where the latex is placed, and then puts the stick on top of the brazier and smokes it repeatedly to dry. Then put the stick into the bucket and continue to coat it with a layer of latex. Then smoke and dry; This was repeated several times until a large white gelatinous substance had accumulated on the stick, which was then cut off, set aside, and taken away by a special person.

At this time, the substance they get is raw rubber. Sometimes, of course, a process is used, in which the gelling is repeatedly rolled with a roller to remove the whey from it, and then the film is a few millimeters thick – a valuable intermediate.

As for the use of rubber, the people of the East Coast have also done a lot of research over the years - after all, it is a substance that has been widely used in later generations. It's impossible for them not to pay attention to it. The first account of the use of rubber came from the Mameluco people of Brazil, who often went deep into the Amazon to capture natives. Therefore, I was fortunate to see how the natives used such things as rubber.

The Indians who lived in the jungle discovered the wonders of rubber early on, and they knew how to make coarser films, which they then used to make rain boots; They also discovered that latex was waterproof, a remarkable feature in the rainy Amazon, where people on the east coast thought that latex could be applied to canvas or clothing to make it waterproof; The Indians also used clay molds to make a lot of rubber containers, which was another wonderful use; Of course, the greatest discovery of the Indians was the realization that latex had a leathery appearance after being smoked, and that it could be used to make many useful things.

All in all, the Indians developed many uses and processing methods of rubber over a long period of time, and the people of the East Coast managed to gather this information and began to design their own processing technology, preparing to use this miraculous gift of nature on a large scale before the Europeans could react.

However, perhaps the people on the east coast were overly optimistic, and in fact as early as 1615, the Spaniards began to use rubber to make the rain cloaks of their soldiers. It was a pity that the Spaniards were not deeply aware of the other wonderful uses of this thing, until more than 100 years later, in 1736, a French expedition to Peru gradually developed various wonderful uses after studying rubber, and finally became popular all over the world. It can be said that it was the French who developed the great material of rubber, and of course it seems that the East Coasters will now lead the way.

The rubber products factory in Yong'an Port, which is now established, undertakes the important task of researching and developing rubber usage. Although it has only been established for more than two months, they have already developed several gadgets based on some of the actual records handed over to them by the Academy of Natural Sciences. The first was the eraser - they found that the rubber block could erase the pencil handwriting on the paper, much to the delight of the East Coast draftsmen, who no longer had to redraw a paper because of a small mistake in the drawing, which saved them a lot of work.

The second use is much more meaningful than eraser, because the technicians of the technical department of Yongan Rubber Products Factory imitated the ideas of the Indians and Spaniards and made many waterproof appliances, such as waterproof leather goods and tarpaulins (cotton, linen, woollen cloth, etc.). However, they don't apply natural rubber latex directly to the cloth like the Spaniards or Indians, they don't have this condition, because it needs to be processed directly in the place of origin, but the rubber blocks that come from New China are basically rubber blocks (natural rubber latex is easy to coagulate into lumps), and rubber blocks obviously can't be applied directly to any object, because you first need to soften them.

However, this obviously could not stump the East Coast technicians, who tried all the chemicals they could find over and over again, such as tar (the benzene in coal tar can dissolve rubber), sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, soda ash, caustic soda, ether, etc., and finally found that ether (produced by the North Chemical Plant, currently used in the East Coast mainly for refrigerant refrigerants and medical anesthesia) This chemical is a good solvent for raw rubber blocks. The dissolved and softened rubber has very good viscosity, can be blended into various sols, and then evenly applied to materials such as leather or cloth by manual brushes, and after it dries, it is a good waterproof material - everyone finally no longer has to wear low-yield, expensive and bulky whale skin waterproofing products.

Later, it was suggested that the zuò balloon could be made out of this sol-coated tarpulin, and this idea even received interest and investment from several travelers, and now that the project has been officially launched, I believe that further news will come out in the future.

In addition, the factory also cooperates with three enterprises, including Dayuheji Qì Textile Factory, Ping An Weaving Factory, and Luoqia Textile Factory, to export fixed-specification raw film to them, and then these enterprises glue the film to the fabric (the dissolved raw rubber has very good viscosity) and make various suspenders, elastic pants and other textiles. These products are also in the experimental stage, but judging by the feedback from some customers who have tried them in the East Coast, the market acceptance of these textiles should be quite good, and the sales prospects should be quite good - this will surely become another jewel in the East Coast textile range in the future.

Suspenders and elastic pants are available, and under the divergent thinking of technicians, various other rubber products have also been developed one by one, only what you can't think of, and nothing they can't do - such as inflatable beds, swimming rings, air pillows, air cushions, etc. The method of making zuò is quite simple, as long as the inner core of these items is immersed in a sol made of dissolved rubber. In addition, useful small things such as hoses, rubber wires, tapes, elastic bandages and other useful things have also been gradually designed, and the next step is trial production to see how the effect is used and whether it can be used.

Of course, it can also be seen from the above description that all rubber products on the East Coast are currently made of raw rubber, that is, rubber that has not been vulcanized. Although the stickiness, elasticity and elasticity of the items made of this rubber are quite good, if it is left to a low temperature for a long time, the rubber will slowly harden and lose its elasticity, which is fatal for this kind of product. Because this means that in the cold winter, rubber products will have a high chance of losing their effectiveness.

In addition, raw rubber that has been dissolved in solvents can easily decompose and lose its effectiveness in hot weather. It can be said that if these two defects are not solved, the sales of rubber products on the east coast and even the world will encounter many limitations, which will eventually affect the development of this sunrise industry.

Especially in the cold southern Patagonia and the hot regions of New China, do you expect this kind of thing to be sold for a price, any reasonable person will buy such a thing that can only be used in summer and autumn. What the? You say that the rain boots made of whale skin zuò are bulky? Well, maybe it's bulky and expensive, but these rain boots don't have problems in extremely low temperatures and they keep warm very well, which is a big plus, isn't it?

To solve this problem, perhaps we can only think of another way to deal with rubber. No matter how ignorant and unheard of the people are, at least some people have heard of the term "vulcanized rubber". However, when it comes to how to vulcanize and what the specific process is, this is a blur. There is no way, it is still up to Yongan Rubber Products Factory to find a way by itself, at least they already know a general direction, that is, to use sulfur to react with rubber. As for whether it is fire, heating, or dissolving, then you have to rely on yourself to do more real, there is no other shortcut, you can only try step by step, one by one possible elimination. (To be continued......)

PS: I would like to introduce you to a book, the same person "Looking West: From China to the East Coast" written by Liang Xiangjian, published at the starting point, link: http://www./Book/3485354.aspx

http://www./Book/3485354.aspx，

If you have time, you can take a look, and I personally think it's better than me......