Preparation of Basalt Incorporated Polyethylene Composite with Enhanced Mechanical Properties for Various Applications

Abstract

The present article showed the possibility of increasing the complex of mechanical properties of polyolefins with dispersed mineral fillers obtained by fine grinding of basalt rocks via ball mill processing. The composites based on dispersed basalt, which were derived from Samara rock mass (Russia) with rare earth elements containing, were obtained by extrusion combining the binder and filler, followed by preparation injection-molded test samples. The study of mechanical properties of materials developed showed the possibility of a significant increase in strength characteristics of different types of polyethylene: the breaking stress at static bending for HDPE can be increasing more than 60% and the impact strength by more than 4 times. In addition the incorporation of the dispersed basalt also enhanced the thermal properties of the composites (the oxygen index of HDPE increases from 19 to 25%).