Plastics & Rubber

Compounds based on plastics and rubber for all kinds of final products make our daily life more comfortable. Industrial minerals are added to such compounds to improve specific properties of the polymer like tensile strength and toughness. The main industrial mineral used worldwide is natural ground calcium carbonate (GCC). The addition of industrial minerals is not only done to save cost, but mainly to improve the properties of the polymer. Therefore the industrial mineral has to be chemically the purest and has to remain stable after blending into the polymer matrix for a long period of time not causing any ageing effects in the final product. Aluminum hydroxide (ATH) or magnesium hydroxide may be used in plastics and rubber compounds to act as flame retardants and smoke suppressants in case of fire.