Question

Discuss the structure of natural rubber.

Answer 1

The destructive distillation of natural rubber gives isoprene as the main product. This suggests that the natural rubber is a polymer of isoprene (C₅H₈) and can be represented as follows.

The X-ray diffraction studies suggest that natural rubber is a cis-isomer, i.e., the isoprene units are arranged in the cis-form.