What Are Latex Used For?

At my work, we use latex gloves. And I was wondering what is latex; so I found out that latex is a stable dispersion of polymer micro particles in a water medium. Latexe can be natural or synthetic that is prepared in the lab environment. Natural latex can be found as a milky sap in many plants that coagulates when expose to outside air. The whole chemistry is quite complicated but latex is basically a combination of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins and gums. Often times, we see the color of natural latex is white in plants but sometimes it can also come in other colors such as yellow, scarlet or even orange color latex.

Now I tried to find the origin of the word latex and couldn’t find it. Latex are often times referred by people to the natural latex rubber which are used in latex condoms and clothings. There are also liquid latex out in the market now a days. They are used in body paint; people use it as an art to present their body and some just for the sake of fun.

So what are the other purpose of latex? But believe it or not, latex can help produce other materials. Of course natural rubber can be squeezed out of latex and can be used as a binding agent in the paints we use for the home walls. There are different kinds of latex like Balata and gutta percha latex. But the chicle and jelutong trees latex are the ones that we use in chewing gum. And then there is poppy latex that is used in opium. We can also find latex being used in supportive mattress that last for over 25 years.