Fillers, active fibrous

ERCOM runs a mobile shredder unit that will visit plants or collection points of member companies to size-reduce scrap parts on site and so reduce transport costs. It then ships the compacted material to a central fractioning plant at Rastatt, Germany where, with a 30 t/day facility, it produces a range of active fillers and fibrous reinforcement material for sale back to SMC producers and other users. Primary SMC products have been developed containing up to 25% recyclate without loss in properties. Several have already been approved by the automotive industry for commercial use and product testing continues as a high priority to demonstrate consistent quality for recyclate material, SMC product, and finished molding. 

Conventionally fillers are divided into reinforcing, active, and inert ones. The reinforcing class includes mainly fibrous materials. Disperse fillers may also perform the reinforcing function, and then they are called active. For the criterion of activity of a filler it has been proposed to employ, for example, the extent of variation of the relative viscosity of the melt or solution caused by introduction of a filler [23] — the greater the variation the better the affinity between the polymer and the filler. 

Sergeeva L M, Dubkova V I, Fainleib A M, Alekseenko V I, Brovko O O and Maevskaya O I (2000) The role of active carbon-fibrous filler in decrease of combustibility of semi-interpenetrating polymer networks. Intern J Polym Mat 47 31-41. 

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