Calcium carbonate is an important non-metallic mineral basic raw material in modern industrial production. It is located at the most upstream of many manufacturing industry chains. It is known as “industrial food”. It is closely related to the national economy and people’s lives. An important supporting material for technology. The main new material products of calcium carbonate service include modified plastics, rubber, wood-plastic materials, sealants, stone paper, paint coatings, composite titanium dioxide, filler masterbatch, artificial granite, etc.
Application and Research of Calcium Carbonate in the Field of New Materials
Coating
In the field of powder coatings, as the European Union began to include barium sulfate in the detection of heavy metals, the use of barium sulfate in the fields of automobiles, building materials, food packaging, and children’s toys has been greatly restricted. Therefore, calcium carbonate has become a good substitute as a greener raw material.
On the whole, calcium carbonate can meet the functional requirements in functional coating products, and at the same time, it has high filling ability and greatly reduces the cost.
Stone paper
Stone paper, also known as composite paper, uses calcium carbonate as the main raw material, polymer resin and other additives as auxiliary materials. Stone paper does not require water and wood pulp in the production process, and does not produce waste gas, waste water and other harmful waste, which can save resources and protect the environment. Stone paper itself is stable and will not be corroded by water, oil and chemicals, and no water and chemical reagents are added for bleaching during the production process, which solves the pollution problem from the root.
The main process of stone paper is to first grind the ore into 1500~2500 mesh ultrafine powder; then make about 80% of calcium carbonate and about 20% of resin and additives into masterbatch through internal mixer and extruder; Film or calendering equipment.
Sealant
Silicone sealant is a new type of polymer sealing material. Because of its “silicone structure” and “organic group”, it is endowed with excellent properties such as UV resistance, high and low temperature resistance and high humidity resistance. In addition, silicone sealants have good bonding effects on metal, glass, ceramics, plastics and other substrates, and are widely used in electronic appliances, lighting, photovoltaics, rail transit, construction and other industries.
Friction material
With the advancement of science and technology, people have higher and higher requirements for friction materials, which require not only good mechanical transmission and braking performance, but also new pursuits for environmental protection and use comfort. Ordinary materials generally have defects such as grain boundaries, dislocations, and cavities, but whiskers do not have these defects and their atomic arrangement is highly ordered. It is a fiber in the form of a single crystal and its strength is close to the theoretical value of the crystal.
Calcium carbonate whiskers have the properties of high wear resistance, heat resistance, heat decay, and good heat recovery. The friction material prepared by using it has good characteristics of vibration reduction, anti-skid, noise reduction, wave absorption and extended life. Moreover, calcium carbonate whiskers are rich in sources, cheap and environmentally friendly, and can greatly improve the mechanical properties of friction materials, so they are friction-enhancing materials with broad application prospects.
PVC building materials
In recent years, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) has become an emerging building interior decoration material. Various sheets, pipes, plates, soft films, and profiled materials are widely used in the construction industry. However, it is often difficult to balance the strength, toughness, wear resistance, hydrophobicity, and colorability of PVC materials. Therefore, modification has become the “only way” for PVC materials.
Now, there are many ways to modify PVC materials. For example, elastomer modified PVC and rigid particle modified PVC in physical modification; copolymerization modification, crosslinking modification, graft modification, chlorination modification, etc. in chemical modification.
Functional filler masterbatch
Calcium carbonate functional masterbatch is a highly compatible technology for calcium carbonate powder and polymer synthetic resin. At present, calcium carbonate plastic masterbatch products with high filling rate are positioned to replace traditional plastic raw materials and greatly reduce the consumption of petroleum resources and forest resources. For example, it becomes a raw material for film grade and hollow blow molding grade plastic production.
Artificial granite
Artificial granite is a technical profile in which raw materials such as marble material, stone powder, and binder are pressed into large-scale square materials under extremely high vacuum, and then solidified at room temperature and then processed into shapes. This kind of stone is not easy to deform, accurate in size, bright in color, high in finish, can be refurbished many times, and is environmentally friendly and radiation-free.
At present, the application of calcium carbonate in the field of new materials is still based on “traditional applications”. Traditional materials have become new materials, and calcium powder has not been “rejected”. Its value in the new material industry lies in its high filling rate and Broad applicability.