Plate No. 142fabric
The smooth, sealed, insulating face of foamed synthetic rubber.
- First documented
- 1930
- Origin
- Wilmington, Delaware, Delaware, United States
- Fiber
- polychloroprene
- Weave
- foamed synthetic rubber sheet, often fabric-faced
- Family
- manufactured
Plate No. 142 · fabric
Neoprene
Neoprene is a synthetic rubber, the first to be mass-produced, developed at DuPont in 1930 as an oil- and weather-resistant substitute for natural rubber. Foamed into a soft sheet full of tiny gas cells and bonded between thin fabric layers, it became the cloth of the wetsuit: the trapped cells insulate, and a thin film of water warmed by the body keeps a diver or surfer warm in cold seas. Beyond wetsuits it turns up in laptop sleeves, knee braces, and fashion, valued for its springy, sealed, insulating body.
Named for
A coined DuPont name from neo, new, and the -prene of its chemical family, for the new rubber.