Light-weight and High Thermal Insulating EPDM Composites Modified with Pretreated Hollow Phenolic Micro-spheres

摘要

High performance thermal insulating ethylene-propylene-diene monomer (EPDM) composites were obtained with the addition of hollow phenolic micro-sphere. The effects of the pretreatment and content of micro-sphere on various properties of EPDM composites were evaluated. Experimental results showed that thermal conductivity and specific gravity of EPDM composites significantly decreased, which was due to the intact and uniform dispersion of pretreated micro-sphere throughout the EPDM matrix. With the content increasing of pretreated micro-sphere, the specific gravity of EPDM composites linearly decreased while the thermal stability increased. Specifically, EPDM composites showed the three-layer structure after ablation and the addition of pretreated micro-sphere distinctively enhanced thermal insulating properties of EPDM composites, which was attributed to multi-type heat conductivity resulted from hollow micro-spheres. Hollow phenolic micro-sphere exhibited great potential in preparing new generation of light-weight and high thermal insulating materials.