Latex

Description

1) A viscous, milky sap produced from numerous plants such as rubber trees, fig trees, spurge, hevea, guayule, and milkweed. The sap from the rubber tree, Hevea brasilienes, can be coagulated with acid then dried to form insoluble sheets of natural rubber. The sap is unstable and begins to decompose within hours of collection unless a small amount of ammonia (less than 1%) is added for stabilization. Latex contains about 33% hydrocarbon, 2% protein, and some sugars and salts suspended in 60% water. Latex rubber is hardened into a usable product by Vulcanization (see also Caoutchouc).

2) The term 'Latex' has been commonly, but confusingly, applied by commercial manufacturers to aqueous emulsions of synthetic resins. It is most often used for house paints. See Latex paint.

Synonyms and Related Terms

1) liquid rubber; rubber latex; látex (Esp.); latex (Fr.); latex (Port.); caoutchouc; guayule; gutta percha

Examples: Vultex

Authority

• The Dictionary of Paper, American Paper Institute, New York, Fourth Edition, 1980

• E.J.LaBarre, Dictionary and Encyclopedia of Paper and Paper-making, Swets & Zeitlinger, Amsterdam, 1969

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Dictionary of Fiber & Textile Technology (older version called Man-made Fiber and Textile Dictionary, 1965), Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Charlotte NC, 1990

• Matt Roberts, Don Etherington, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: a Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1982

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• Rosalie Rosso King, Textile Identification, Conservation, and Preservation, Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, NJ, 1985

• Boise Cascade Paper Group, The Paper Handbook, Boise Cascade, Portland OR, 1989

• Theodore J. Reinhart, 'Glossary of Terms', Engineered Plastics, ASM International, 1988

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000