What is this clay and rubberish metarial?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around a participant's experiment mixing crafting glue and rubber dust, leading to the creation of a material that exhibits properties of both clay and rubber over time. The inquiry focuses on the chemical processes and transformations involved in this mixture, exploring the nature of the resulting material and its characteristics.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant describes mixing crafting glue and rubber dust, resulting in a material that initially behaves like clay and later like rubber, raising questions about the underlying chemistry.
  • Another participant suggests that the resulting material resembles superball material, specifically polybutadiene, but emphasizes the need for a chemist to confirm this.
  • Questions are raised about the chemical composition of crafting glue, with responses indicating it is polyvinyl acetate (PVA), a type of thermoplastic.
  • A participant explains that many glues are rubber materials dissolved in a solvent, which evaporates to leave a thin layer of rubber, suggesting that the mixture involved gluing rubber to rubber.
  • Further clarification is provided that one of the elastomers involved is polyvinyl acetate, with a mention of PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) as another common version.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express curiosity and propose various hypotheses about the material's properties and composition, but there is no consensus on the exact nature of the chemical processes or the final material created.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge the limitations of their understanding and the need for expert input, particularly from a chemist, to clarify the chemical interactions and properties of the materials involved.

Nabir14
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TL;DR
I mixed crafting glue with rubber dust and rubbed it on my hand for some reason and it made this clayish ball which after some time acts more like rubber than clay. What is this?
I was feeling very bored so I wanted to play with my surroundings and I had:

Crafting glue:
images.jpeg

And Rubber Dust:
IMG_20240820_191704.jpg


Near me so I (for some reason) mixed them together and rubbed them on my hand. After some time it started to take a spherical shape. It lost the stickiness of glue and started acting like clay, it could be stretched too. After some more time it lost its clay property and started acting like rubber. It could still be stretched but not so much. Touching it feels like plastic and it also works like a dustless kinda less efficient pencil eraser.

Why? Like I mixed glue and rubber "dust" together and rubbed it on my hand so why did it became a clayish metarial? And then why did it even became a rubberish plastic type metarial after some time? Also there wasn't much rubber dust so how did it also worked like a pencil eraser?

Image of the metarial:
IMG_20240820_191653.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
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What kind of glue is crafting glue?
Chemically?
 
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BillTre said:
What kind of glue is crafting glue?
Chemically?
polyvinyl acetate (PVA), a vinyl polymer and type of thermoplastic.
 
jedishrfu said:
On inspection, it looks like superball material but you'd need a chemist to tell you what you've made.

Superballs are made of polybutadiene:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Ball
Oh I will ask my chemistry teacher what I made.
 
Without getting into the chemistry, you just glued rubber to rubber. Probably not the same kind of rubber. Most glue is a rubber material, that has been dissolved into a solvent. When you glue something together, your spreading the rubber out very thin. Then the solvent evaporates, and you have the very thin layer of rubber holding the 2 parts together. Many glues are polystyrene or polyurethane based rubbers, technically called an elastomer. Very simplified explanation.
 
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In your case one of the elastomers was the Polyvinyl (acetate). Another more common version of this is PVC (Polyvinyl chloride)
 
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Lazaris Long said:
Without getting into the chemistry, you just glued rubber to rubber. Probably not the same kind of rubber. Most glue is a rubber material, that has been dissolved into a solvent. When you glue something together, your spreading the rubber out very thin. Then the solvent evaporates, and you have the very thin layer of rubber holding the 2 parts together. Many glues are polystyrene or polyurethane based rubbers, technically called an elastomer. Very simplified explanation.
I see
 

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