Natural Carbonate Fillers

Abstract

Natural carbonate fillers are amongst most important and most economical inorganic fillers. These fillers are being widely applied in civil engineering, road bases, and various industrial braches such as industry of colors and lacquers, polymers, paper, abrasives, pesticides, electrodes, pharmaceuticals, etc. During previous twenty years, a significant technological advancement has been performed on global level which further enabled and widened carbonate fillers application. In Serbia, the production of high quality fillers is not fully established; therefore consumers are orientated on imported raw materials which originate from the countries that produce super-fine and ultra-fine carbonate qualities. However, the production possibilities are not only modern technology related; they are based on starting raw material of adequate quality. Production and application of natural carbonate fillers are targeted by manufacturers of modern micronizing milling equipment, which can be seen in their constant attempts to obtain higher quality of carbonate fillers that are applied in various industrial branches. Micronized non-metallic mineral raw materials are already replaced variety of other mineral fillers which are found in insufficient quantities in nature and whose manufacturing technology is by far more complex and therefore much more expensive. The most important advantage of carbonates is in their prevalence in superficial parts of Earth crust, quantity of rock masses, easy processing and micronizing. Natural carbonate fillers, due to new processing techniques such is micronizing milling, represent good and inexpensive aternative for the other micronized natural inorganica materials. With its fineness and whiteness some of the products that belong to the natural calcium carbonates (CaCO3) group can compete with chemically precipitated calcium carbonates. Micronized natural carbonate fillers represent an important addition in technological processing and their final goal is to shape the properties of the final product. In many cases, regarding the carbonate filler quantity in a final product, they might as well be treated as a basic component.