Abstract
While the growing interest in sustainable sourcing has led to a revival of interest in particulate fillers derived from biomaterial sources, this is nothing new. Wood flour was one of the first fillers used in plastics, and rice hull-derived silica was being promoted for use in place of some carbon blacks in the 1970s.
In addition to their sustainability credentials, many of these fillers offer other advantages, particularly weight saving, over minerals. On the other hand, they frequently have a number of limitations including higher cost, poorer thermal stability, color issues, and moisture sensitivity which have hindered their acceptance. Even so, renewed effort is going into their development, especially that of nano-sized particles.
Wood flour is the standout commercial example today, with large volume use in wood polymer composites. Starch, cellulose, lignin, and even proteins are being explored as nanoparticles, especially for tire use. Although their use as a carbon black replacement failed to develop, rice hulls are still being developed for other applications and even as a raw material for precipitated silica filler manufacture.
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© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Rothon, R. (2016). Fillers from Organic Sources. In: Palsule, S. (eds) Polymers and Polymeric Composites: A Reference Series. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37179-0_22-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37179-0_22-1
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