Ozone source?

Question

I keep a small quantity of rubber bands in my garage that degrade rapidly. They crack and fall apart in ~2 months. The larger quantity which is in a plastic bag in the house stays flexible for at least a year or maybe 2.

There are no volatile chemicals except gasoline, oil, and a few cleaners and insecticides. The lighting is 1/2 incandescent, 1/2 fluorescent but is only on for ~2hrs/day. No direct sunlight, dark garage. There are no high voltage sources that I know of. A dormitory style refrigerator is running in the corner.

I will probably try some sealed container experiments, but was looking for any known issues with rubber storage. 2 months seems too short to be natural aging of a commercial rubber product.

Jim Thompson · Accepted Answer

Some rubber bands seem to degrade, even in the dark, so I don't know if it's even a light-related thing, probably more heat related. I had a box of large rubber bands in a closet inside the house... after about a year they're crumbling. 		                                         ...Jim Thompson --  | James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | | Analog Innovations                               |     et      | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | | Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             | | Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | | E-mail Icon at  |    1962     |               I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Jim Thompson · Answer

Tim Wescott · Answer

It may be the various petroleum vapors. You do not have a furnace in the garage, right?  Oil furnaces use a HV  spark to ignite, as do a few gas furnaces ("pilotless"). If you start engines -- cars, mowers, weed whackers, etc. -- in there  you're probably releasing a bunch of partially-combusted hydrocarbons,  which I bet are as bad as anything else. Why not just keep them in a plastic bag in the garage?  I have an old tea  tin that I keep my rubber bands in, and they last and last and last. --  My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook. My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook. Why am I not happy that they have found common ground? Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Software

Stumpy · Answer

No furnace.  The CFL bulbs have presumably

Jim Thompson · Answer

and only I've always preferred the eraser stick dispenser to erasers on the mechanical pencils, since the latter tend to be weenie erasers... and, as an old style, do the design math on paper, kind of guy, I do a lot of erasing.  Though, now, it's mostly CAD schematics >:-} 		                                         ...Jim Thompson --  | James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | | Analog Innovations                               |     et      | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | | Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             | | Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | | E-mail Icon at  |    1962     |               I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

George Herold · Answer

pidly.  is in a  2. ners and ut is only o high  running ng for  be         ...Jim Thompson       ...Jim Thompson nd, -html#axzz2SG... xt - Hmm "the pencil" by H. Petroski is a nice read. George H.

Steve Gonedes · Answer

< I keep a small quantity of rubber bands in my garage that degrade rapidly.  < They crack and fall apart in ~2 months.  The larger quantity which is in a  < plastic bag in the house stays flexible for at least a year or maybe 2. < There are no volatile chemicals except gasoline, oil, and a few cleaners and  < insecticides.  The lighting is 1/2 incandescent, 1/2 fluorescent but is only  < on for ~2hrs/day.  No direct sunlight, dark garage.  There are no high  < voltage sources that I know of.  A dormitory style refrigerator is running  < in the corner. < I will probably try some sealed container experiments, but was looking for  < any known issues with rubber storage.  2 months seems too short to be  < natural aging of a commercial rubber product.  My grandmom used to take a wad of aluminum foil and wrap the rubber bands around that. They seemed to last well. Don't know if there is a relation/correlation. Then again what is rubber and polyvinyl these days?

Ozone source?

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