In the course of the devel­op­ments in the field of syn­thet­ic rub­bers at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry, it was pos­si­ble to pro­duce chloro­prene rub­ber (CR), a rub­ber sim­i­lar to the gen­er­al-pur­pose rub­bers SBR and BR, which how­ev­er showed a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in its aging prop­er­ties. This spe­cial prop­er­ty, cou­pled with good mechan­i­cal behav­ior, but also sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter resis­tance to acids, alka­lis and polar chem­i­cals, made chloro­prene rub­ber the most impor­tant spe­cial-pur­pose rub­ber for many years. CR is also resis­tant to oils and greas­es and, to a lim­it­ed extent, fuels.

CR-based com­pounds are used in many tech­ni­cal rub­ber prod­ucts. The good aging prop­er­ties and increased media resis­tance at a phys­i­cal val­ue lev­el com­pa­ra­ble to that of gen­er­al-pur­pose rub­bers make CR prod­ucts inter­est­ing for stressed parts in out­door appli­ca­tions and in con­tact with many dif­fer­ent media. This includes bel­lows, cable sheath­ing, hoses, stop buffers and con­vey­or belts. CR is also used in the pro­duc­tion of sports arti­cles and cloth­ing in con­tact with sea­wa­ter. Here often as a foamed ver­sion. In dis­solved form CR is a main com­po­nent of many adhe­sives.