Natural rubber is mainly derived from the trefoil tree. When the skin of the rubber tree is cut, the milky white juice is called, which is called latex. The latex is coagulated, washed, formed and dried to obtain natural rubber.
Synthetic rubber is produced by artificial synthesis, and different types of rubber can be synthesized using different raw materials (monomers). From 1900 to 1910, chemist C.D. Harris determined that the structure of natural rubber is a polymer of isoprene, which opens the way for synthetic rubber. In 1910, the Russian chemist SV Lebedev (1874-1934) used sodium metal as an initiator to polymerize 1,3-butadiene into butadiene rubber. Later, many new synthetic rubber varieties appeared, such as Butadiene rubber, neoprene, styrene butadiene rubber, etc. The output of synthetic rubber has greatly exceeded that of natural rubber, and the largest output is styrene-butadiene rubber.