Is rubber processing the same as plastic processing?

Yes and no. Lodige has extensive experience in rubber processing, and many of our systems can be cross-applied to both rubber and plastic applications. Rubber is not technically a plastic, but it is another form of polymer adjacent to plastics known as an elastomer.

At a high level, elastomers are elastic (meaning that they can stretch and return to their original shape), whereas plastics are rigid and inelastic (meaning when they stretch, their form is changed permanently). In terms of manufacturing processes, rubber differs from plastic by an additional process step known as vulcanization, which is a thermal chemical process to achieve rubber’s durable, elastic properties