After mixing and coloring, silicone rubber can be extruded into tubes, strips, solid wires or custom profiles according to the manufacturer's dimensional specifications. Cord wires can be joined together to make O-rings, and extruded profiles can be joined together to make seals. Silicone rubber can be molded into custom shapes and designs.
Silicone rubber is used in automotive applications, many cooking, baking and food storage products, including underwear, apparel for athletic wear and footwear, electronics, home repair and hardware, and many invisible applications.
Liquid silicone rubber is also used in life science applications (syringe pistons, seals for distribution systems, gaskets for venous flow regulators, breathing masks, implantable chamber for intravenous injection), cosmetics (mascara brushes, cosmetic packaging, cosmetic applicators) and lipstick molds and optical products (circular lenses, collimators, Fresnel lenses and free-form lenses).
Frost resistant solar hot water panels utilize the elasticity of silicone to repeatedly adapt to the expansion of water when frozen, while their extremely high temperature tolerance maintains a lower brittleness than when frozen and has excellent temperature tolerance above 150°C (302°F). It does not have a carbon skeleton, but a chemically strong silicon skeleton that reduces its potential as a food source for dangerous aquatic bacteria such as Legionella.
Non-dyed silicone rubber tapes with iron oxide (III) additives (giving the tape a red-orange color) are widely used in aviation and aerospace wiring applications as splicing or wrapping tapes due to their non-combustible properties. Iron oxide additives can improve thermal conductivity, but will not change the high electrical insulation properties of silicone rubber. This type of self-fusing tape fuses or fuses itself, so when stretched and wrapped around cables, electrical joints, hoses and pipes, it bonds into a strong, seamless rubber-like waterproof layer of electrical insulation, although not an adhesive.
By adding carbon or another conductive substance as a powdery filler, silicone rubber can be made electrically conductive while retaining most of its other mechanical properties. Therefore, it is used in flexible contacts that close when pressed and is used in many devices, such as computer keyboards and remote control earphones.