"As soft as tofu, yet unbreakable and tear-resistant, and even capable of being sterilized in boiling water?" This seemingly contradictory material has recently appeared in three major scenarios: baby pacifiers, sports drinking nozzles, and outdoor space cups. The secret lies in the same liquid silicone rubber, which combines "soft touch" and "high toughness" through the golden setting of "40-degree hardness."
Laboratory data may sound like gibberish, but here’s the plain English translation:
- 9 MPa tensile strength ≈ Hanging a 9 kg dumbbell with a rubber strip as thick as a headphone cable without breaking it;
- 580% elongation ≈ A small loop originally 1 cm long can be stretched to 6 cm and still return to its original shape;
- 35 kN/m tear strength ≈ A 1 mm cut made with scissors cannot be torn apart by an adult using both hands.
Even more remarkable is the "1:1 mix-and-bake" process. In the factory, it’s like whipping milk foam: Components A and B are poured into a mixer in a 1:1 ratio, followed by discharging, injection molding, and 45-second hot forming, with no secondary baking required. Compared to traditional solid rubber, the workshop temperature drops by 8°C, and workers finally bid farewell to the "sauna room" mode.
The color can also be "versatile." The base material is as transparent as crystal, and with the addition of food-grade color paste, it disperses evenly in 30 seconds. The color difference ΔE between batches is less than 0.5, making it almost indistinguishable to the naked eye.
Because of this, it has seamlessly transitioned from pacifiers to sports drinking nozzles: the soft-mouth water bottles beloved by cyclists remain undeformed even when chewed; camping space cups can be sterilized in boiling water 100 times without the sealing ring turning white; even coffee machine milk frothers have adopted it, withstanding high-temperature steam impacts of 15 bar while maintaining tight edges.
One material, with 40-degree hardness, can effortlessly switch between "a baby’s tongue" and 100°C steam—behind its mastery of both softness and hardness lies the art of elasticity at the molecular level, as well as a small secret to the quiet upgrade of modern life.
