INDIA,RUBBER RESEARCH

A.O.N. Panikkar, V.K.G. Nair, and V.C. Markose, "Breeding and tree improvement", in P.N.Radhakrishna Pillay Ed., Handbook of Natural Rubber Production in India, Rubber Research Institute of India, Kottayam, Kerala, 1980. 

Claramma N M Varghese L Mathew N M India,Rubber Research Institute... 

Rubber Research Institute of India, Kerala, India... 

Permissions granted by the following journals and publishers are gratefully acknowledged Academic Press, Inc., Annual Reviews, Inc., Canadian Journal of Research, Chemische Berichte, Die Makromoleku-lare Chemie, India Rubber World, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Interscience Publishers, Inc., Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Applied Physics, Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of the Chemical Society (London), Journal of Colloid Science, Journal of Polymer Science, Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards, Transactions of the Faraday Society, Williams and Wilkins Company, and Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie. 

T.T. Edathil, C.K. Jacob, and A.Joseph, "Leaf diseases", in P.J.George and C.K.Jacob, eds.. Natural Rubber Agro-management and Crop Processing, Rubber Research Institute of India, Kottayam, Kerala, 2000. 

A.K. Krishnakumar, C.Gupta, R.R.Sinha, M.RSethuraj, S.N.Potty, T. Happen, and K. Das, Ecological impact of rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations in North East India 2. Soil properties and biomass recycling, Indian Journal of Natural Rubber Research, 4(2), 131-141,1991. 

N.M.Mathew retired as Director of the Rubber Research Institute of India in October 2006. He has published more than 100 papers and edited four books on rubber. 

Claude Daneault Pulp and Paper Research Center, University of Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada Chapal K. Das Materials Science Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India Santanu Datta Rubber Technology Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India... 

During World War II the United States, cut off from India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Malaysia, and the Dutch East Indies (areas which, since the late nineteenth century, had replaced South America as the main suppliers of natural rubber), developed several superior synthetic rubbers. The U.S. synthetic rubber industry originated from two discoveries that were serendipitous that is, they occurred while the researchers were searching for something else. 

Patit P. Kundu is Professor in the Department of Polymer Science Technology at Calcutta University, India. He obtained his PhD in 1997 from IIT, Kharagpur, India. He has 67 research papers to his credit in international journals along with ten papers in national/international conferences, contributed 2 book chapters, and one patent. His research interest centers on the fields of synthesis and characterization of oil based rubber and nano-composites, microbial fuel cell, direct methanol fuel cell, microbial biodegradation of waste polyolefin fUm, tissue engineering and gene therapy. 

Jithin Joy is a research scholar at the International and Inter University Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He has co-edited the book Natural Rubber Materials Volume 2 Composites and Nanocomposites and is the author of several articles and... 

He is a co-editor of the book entitled Natural Rubber Materials Volume 2 Composites and Nanocomposites, pirblished by the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2010, Mr. Jithin Joy received a prestigiorrs research fellowship administered jointly by the Council of Scientific and Indirstrial Research and University Grants Commission of the Government of India. He has publications in international journals and conference proceedings to his credit. He is a co-author of several books chapters, peer-reviewed publications, and invited presentations in international forums. 

The first paper mill was buUt by Eiichi Shibusawa in Tokyo in 1872. Some tons of natural rubber were imported from India and the USA in 1880-1890 and, concurrently, a rubber manufacturing company was buUt (1886). Celluloid products were first imported from Germany in 1877, and their domestic production started around 1890. The most interesting example is the Japanese urushi lacquer made from the poison oak tree. Because of its bright and clear color, the lacquer has been widely used from commodity to art works in Japan. In 1883, Hrkorokuro Yoshida published a research article on the urushi lacquer, describing an enzyme (later named laccase) that initiated the polycondensation of urushiol [5]. After 1903, scientific study on the urushi lacquer was continued by RUcou Majima [6]. 

Very interesting studies of natural rubber reinforcement with ZnO nanoparticles were performed by scientists from India, under the direction of Sabu Thomas [62]. The goal of these studies was to characterize the viscoelastic behavior and reinforcement mechanism of ZnO nanoparticles introduced into the rubber matrix. They have presented a constrained polymer model based on a rubbery region and a ZnO nanoparticle. Very interestingly, the authors presented a core-shell morphology model and constrained polymer model to explain the constrained polymer chains in NR/ZnO nanocomposites [62]. Thanks to this research and the proposed models, it is possible to understand the behavior of nanofillers in the polymer matrix and maybe in the future to develop an ideal nanofiller for use in the rubber matrix. 

Ms. Jini Varghese is currently a Research Scholar at the School of Chemical Sciences at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. She is engaged in doctoral studies in the area of EPDM rubber-graphene nanocomposites. 

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