Principal Types of Particulate Fillers

One of the fascinations of working in the field of particulate-filled polymer composites is the wide variety of materials used as fillers, from relatively simple chalks and limestones to complex rare-earth magnetic powders. Even apparently, mundane, relatively inexpensive, fillers can vary in subtle, but important, ways according to their precise origin and method of manufacture, thus adding their interest to the scientific and technological mind. 

In the space available here it is only possible to cover the major fillers and a few of the less common filler materials, the latter having been selected on the basis of lack of adequate treatment elsewhere and for illustration of important principles. 

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Hancock, M. and Rothon, R.N., Chapter 2 Principal types of particulate fillers, in Particulate Filled Polymer Composites, 2nd edn., Rothon, R.N. (Ed.), Rapra Technology, Shawbury, U.K., 2003, pp. 88-90. 

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