Palaquium gutta - Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-099

Gutta-percha is a tree of the genus '' Palaquium'' in the family

Sapotaceae 240px, '' Madhuca longifolia'' var. ''latifolia'' in Narsapur, Medak district, India The Sapotaceae are a family (biology), family of flowering plants belonging to the order (biology), order Ericales. The family includes about 800 species of ev ...

. The name also refers to the rigid, naturally biologically inert, resilient, electrically nonconductive,

thermoplastic A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling. Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains associate ...

latex Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

derived from the tree, particularly from '' Palaquium gutta''; it is a polymer of

isoprene Isoprene, or 2-methyl-1,3-butadiene, is a common volatile organic compound with the formula CH2=C(CH3)−CH=CH2. In its pure form it is a colorless volatile liquid. Isoprene is an unsaturated hydrocarbon. It is produced by many plants and animals ...

which forms a rubber-like

elastomer An elastomer is a polymer with viscoelasticity (i.e. both viscosity and Elasticity (physics), elasticity) and with weak intermolecular forces, generally low Young's modulus and high Deformation (mechanics), failure strain compared with other mate ...

. The word "gutta-percha" comes from the plant's name in Malay: ''getah'' translates as "

". ''Percha'' or ''perca'' is an older name for

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

Description

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Guttapercha-boom TMnr 60016733

''P. gutta'' trees are tall and up to in trunk diameter. The leaves are

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

, alternate or spirally arranged, simple, entire, long, glossy green above, and often yellow or

glaucous ''Glaucous'' (, ) is used to describe the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, as well as in the names of birds, such as the glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus''), glaucous-winged gull (''Larus glaucescens''), ...

below. The flowers are produced in small clusters along the stems, each flower with a white

corolla Corolla may refer to: *Corolla (botany), the petals of a flower, considered as a unit *Toyota Corolla, an automobile model name *Corolla (headgear) A ''corolla'' is an ancient headdress in the form of a small circlet or crown.euphorbiaceous tree '' Excoecaria parvifolia'', which yields an aromatic, heavy, dark-brown timber.

Chemistry

Chemically, gutta-percha is a polyterpene, a

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + '' -mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

, or

polyisoprene Polyisoprene is strictly speaking a collective name for polymers that are produced by polymerization of isoprene. In practice polyisoprene is commonly used to refer to synthetic ''cis''-1,4-polyisoprene, made by the industrial polymerisation of i ...

, specifically (

trans Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond", or "on the other side of". Used alone, trans may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trans (festival), a former festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom * ''Trans'' (fil ...

-1,4-polyisoprene). The cis structure of polyisoprene is the common

. While latex rubbers are

amorphous In condensed matter physics and materials science, an amorphous solid (or non-crystalline solid, glassy solid) is a solid that lacks the long-range order that is characteristic of a crystal. Etymology The term comes from the Greek language, Gr ...

in molecular structure, gutta-percha (the trans structure)

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...

lizes, leading to a more rigid material. It exists in alpha and beta forms, with the alpha form being brittle at room temperature.

Uses

Historic

Long before Gutta-percha was introduced into the Western world, it was used in a less processed form by the natives of the Malaysian archipelago for making knife handles, walking sticks, and other purposes. The first European to discover this material was John Tradescant, who collected it in the far east in 1656. He named this material "Mazer wood". William Montgomerie, a medical officer in imperial service, introduced gutta-percha into practical use in the West. He was the first to appreciate the potential of this material in medicine, and he was awarded the gold medal by the Royal Society of Arts, London in 1843.Harvey Wickes Felter and John Uri Lloyd
"Gutta-Percha-: An Untold Story. Prakesh et al. ~2001 Endodontology"
King's American Dispensatory. Scientifically classified in 1843, it was found to be a useful natural

. In 1851, of gutta-percha was imported into Britain. During the second half of the 19th century, gutta-percha was used for many domestic and industrial purposes, and it became a household word. Gutta-percha was particularly important for the manufacture of underwater telegraph cables.Bill Burns
The Gutta Percha Company
atlantic-cable.com, accessed 6 October 2010. Indeed, it made them possible. It does not degrade in seawater and is a good electrical insulator. These properties, along with its mouldability and flexibility made it ideal for the purpose. There was no other material to match it in the 19th century. The use in electrical cables generated a huge demand which led to unsustainable harvesting and collapse of supply.

Electrical

Gutta-percha latex is biologically inert, resilient, and is a good

electrical insulator An electrical insulator is a material in which electric current does not flow freely. The atoms of the insulator have tightly bound electrons which cannot readily move. Other materials—semiconductors and conductors—conduct electric current ...

with a high

dielectric strength In physics, the term dielectric strength has the following meanings: *for a pure electrically insulating material, the maximum electric field that the material can withstand under ideal conditions without undergoing electrical breakdown and beco ...

Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...

discovered its value as an insulator soon after the introduction of the material to Britain in 1843. Allowing this fluid to evaporate and coagulate in the sun produced a latex which could be made flexible again with hot water, but which did not become brittle, unlike

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...

prior to the discovery of

vulcanization Vulcanization (British: Vulcanisation) is a range of processes for hardening rubbers. The term originally referred exclusively to the treatment of natural rubber with sulfur, which remains the most common practice. It has also grown to includ ...

. By 1845, telegraph wires insulated with gutta-percha were being manufactured in the UK. It served as the insulating material for early undersea telegraph cables, including the first

transatlantic telegraph cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...

. The material was a major constituent of Chatterton's compound used as an insulating sealant for telegraph and other electrical cables. The dielectric constant of dried gutta-percha ranges from 2.56 to 3.01. Resistivity of dried gutta-percha ranges from 25 x 10¹⁴ to 370 x 10¹⁴ ohm-cm. Since about 1940,

polyethylene Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging ( plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including b ...

has supplanted gutta-percha as an electrical insulator.

Other

In the mid-19th century, gutta-percha was used to make furniture, notably by the

Gutta Percha Company The Gutta Percha Company was an English company formed in 1845 to make a variety of products from the recently introduced natural rubber gutta-percha. Unlike other natural rubbers, this material was thermoplastic allowing it to be easily mou ...

, established in 1847. Several of these ornate, revival-style pieces were shown at the 1851

Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...

in Hyde Park, London. The company also made a range of utensils. The "

guttie A golf ball is a special ball designed to be used in the game of golf. Under the rules of golf, a golf ball has a mass no more than , has a diameter not less than , and performs within specified velocity, distance, and symmetry limits. Like go ...

" golf ball (which had a solid gutta-percha core) revolutionized the game. Gutta-percha was used to make "mourning" jewelry, because it was dark in color and could be easily molded into beads or other shapes. Pistol hand grips and rifle shoulder pads were also made from gutta-percha, since it was hard and durable, though it fell into disuse when synthetic

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adapta ...

s such as

Bakelite Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, better known as Bakelite ( ), is a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. The first plastic made from synthetic components, it was developed ...

became available. Gutta-percha was used in canes and walking sticks. In 1856, United States Representative

Preston Brooks Preston Smith Brooks (August 5, 1819 – January 27, 1857) was an American politician and member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving from 1853 until his resignation in July 1856 and again from August 1856 until his ...

used a cane made of gutta-percha as a weapon in his attack on

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

Charles Sumner Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811March 11, 1874) was an American statesman and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of th ...

. The wood of many species is also valuable.

Today

Dentistry

The same bioinertness that made it suitable for marine cables also means it does not readily react within the human body. It is used in a variety of surgical devices and during

root canal A root canal is the naturally occurring anatomic space within the root of a tooth. It consists of the pulp chamber (within the coronal part of the tooth), the main canal(s), and more intricate anatomical branches that may connect the root ...

therapy. It is the predominant material used to obturate, or fill, the empty space inside the root of a tooth after it has undergone

endodontic therapy Root canal treatment (also known as endodontic therapy, endodontic treatment, or root canal therapy) is a treatment sequence for the infected pulp of a tooth which is intended to result in the elimination of infection and the protection o ...

. Its physical and chemical properties, including its inertness and

biocompatibility Biocompatibility is related to the behavior of biomaterials in various contexts. The term refers to the ability of a material to perform with an appropriate host response in a specific situation. The ambiguity of the term reflects the ongoing de ...

melting point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depen ...

ductility Ductility is a mechanical property commonly described as a material's amenability to drawing (e.g. into wire). In materials science, ductility is defined by the degree to which a material can sustain plastic deformation under tensile str ...

, and

malleability Ductility is a mechanical property commonly described as a material's amenability to drawing (e.g. into wire). In materials science, ductility is defined by the degree to which a material can sustain plastic deformation under tensile stres ...

, make it important in

endodontics Endodontics (from the Greek roots ''endo-'' "inside" and ''odont-'' "tooth") is the dental specialty concerned with the study and treatment of the dental pulp. Overview Endodontics encompasses the study (practice) of the basic and clinic ...

, e.g., as gutta-percha points.

Zinc oxide Zinc oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a white powder that is insoluble in water. ZnO is used as an additive in numerous materials and products including cosmetics, food supplements, rubbers, plastics, ceramics, glass, cement ...

is added to reduce brittleness and improve plasticity.

Barium sulfate Barium sulfate (or sulphate) is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ba SO4. It is a white crystalline solid that is odorless and insoluble in water. It occurs as the mineral barite, which is the main commercial source of barium and ...

is added to provide

radiopacity Radiodensity (or radiopacity) is opacity to the radio wave and X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum: that is, the relative inability of those kinds of electromagnetic radiation to pass through a particular material. Radiolucency or hypo ...

so that its presence and location can be verified in dental X-ray images.

Substitutes

Gutta-percha remained an industrial staple well into the 20th century, when it was gradually replaced with superior synthetic materials such as

, though a similar and cheaper natural material called ''

balatá ''Manilkara bidentata'' is a species of ''Manilkara'' native to a large area of northern South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Common names include bulletwood, balatá, ausubo, massaranduba, quinilla, and (ambiguously) " cow-tree". D ...

'' was often used in gutta-percha's place. The two materials are almost identical, and ''balatá ''is often called ''gutta-balatá''.

Flotsam

Blocks of

flotsam In maritime law, flotsam'','' jetsam'','' lagan'','' and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A shipwreck is defined as the rema ...

, about the size of a chopping board, bearing the name "Tjipetir" (a plantation in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...

, now

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

, operating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), were washed up on the beaches of northern Europe for some time through 2013 and 2014. They are believed to be blocks of gutta-percha from the Japanese liner '' Miyazaki Maru'', which was sunk west of the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly (; kw, Syllan, ', or ) is an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is the most southerly point in Britain, being over further south than the most southerly point of th ...

in 1917.

References

External links

Germplasm Resources Information Network: ''Palaquium''The Gutta Percha Company on the History of the Atlantic Cable site
* {{authority control Dentistry Palaquium Rubber Endodontics