Preparation and Properties of Insulation Flexible Cork Composites

Abstract

The cork composite (RC16) is prepared by using one-component moisture curing polyurethane (U030) as cork adhesive, and the cork composite exhibits excellent mechanical properties and flexibility, and its density is 0.40g/cm3. The effect of adhesive content, moisture content in cork granules, and curing condition on the thermal insulation property, flexibility, and mechanical properties of the RC16 cork was investigated. The results show that:the synthetic adhesive U030 has good compatibility and adhesion with cork granules, which can wrap the cork granules completely and distribute evenly; the mechanical properties of the cork composite exhibit first increasing and then decreasing with increasing moisture content in cork granules, and the maximum value is reached at 7.0%; with the increase of U030 content, each performance of the RC16 cork show rising firstly, and then towards a stabilizing trend, but the thermal conductivity increases correspondingly, so when U030 content is 30%, the comprehensive performance of composite is the best; the optimum curing condition of the RC16 cork is defined:curing temperature is 110℃ and curing time is 1.5h. RC16 exhibits good heat resistance, which can bear 800℃ ablation within 20s.

Keywords

• cork composites
• polyurethane adhesive
• flexibility
• insulation
• mechanical property