I bought some Plasti Dip to use on my wheels and my daughter formed a very good question. How does rubber become a liquid, shoved in a can, stay in there as a liquid, and then dry as a peelable rubber material once applied to a surface? Not just Plasti Dip, but bed liner sprays and other similar products.
I haven’t found a straightforward answer through Google.
In: Chemistry
Two primary methods.
One is the material reacts with something in the air to complete a chemical reaction. The substance in the air can either act as an ingredient for the reaction (it becomes part of the new material compound) or as a catalyst (it greatly speeds up the reaction without becoming part of it).
Edit: In the case of the catalyst, the material is probably setting (becoming solid) inside the container. Its just doing so at an extremely slow rate, so it remains useable for a long time.
Two is drying. The material may be stored with a solvent. The solvent evaporates out of the material and the remaining leftover becomes a solid. Good ol’ Elmer’s glue uses this method. The liquid glue has water. Once the water evaporates the glue material is left as a solid.
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