The vulcanization reaction was discovered by the American Charles Goodyear in 1839, who mixed sulfur with rubber and heated it to produce a material with better properties. This discovery is the most important milestone in the history of rubber. The British Hancock was the first to use this method for industrial production, and his friend Brockeden called the production process vulcanization, a term that rubber process scientists still use today.
In 1940, resin vulcanization and quinone oxime vulcanization methods were discovered successively. In 1943, sulfurization of sulfur donors was discovered. After the Second World War, there were new vulcanization systems, such as radiation vulcanization discovered in the 1950s, ureane vulcanization system in the 1970s and balanced vulcanization system proposed in the 1980s. Nevertheless, because sulfur is cheap and easy to obtain, rich resources, vulcanizing rubber performance is good, it is still the best vulcanizing agent. After more than 100 years of research and development, several basic sulfur vulcanization systems of different levels have been formed