Without plastics additives, polymer resins will find very limited uses and fail to perform in most applications. A wide range of materials such as extenders, plasticisers, fillers and process aids are added during the plastic compounding process to help with the process and compensate for the resin’s weaknesses in achieving the desired end product.
Mineral fillers are industrial mineral rocks ground to a suitable particle size that are used to alter the physical properties of a polymer resin in order to lower cost, increase or decrease density and add texture. These solid particulate materials (powder, grain, flakes, needles, etc.) are immiscible in the polymer resin - they modify the resin’s mechanical properties without changing its chemical composition.
There are more than 70 types of mineral fillers and more than 15 types of fibres of natural or synthetic origin that have been used or evaluated as fillers...