Naked alpaca wool works better with silicone elastomers

Abstract

Silicone elastomers must be filled/reinforced with fillers, typically fumed silica, as they are otherwise soft and/or weak and prone to tearing. Fumed silica, produced from waste chlorosilanes by combustion, is...

Manufacturing Technologies of Carbon/Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites and Their Properties: A Review

“…All their green composites showed physical, mechanical and thermal properties comparable or superior to ultramodern biomass-based composites. Moreover, Zheng et al [7] reported improved tensile properties of reinforcing agents based on waste wool fibers, with this being a renewable resource. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption has become a major focus in the automobile industry.…”

Functional silicone oils and elastomers: new routes lead to new properties

“…14B). 100 In retrospect, this outcome should not have been surprising, as silicones that surface modify hair are found in many cream rinse/hair conditioner products. Since no chemistry was needed to modify the wool, and natural materials diluted the synthetic silicone polymer, the resulting product was greener than a pure silicone.…”

“…and 108 reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society. (B) (i) Alpaca, silicone elastomer containing (ii) 10 wt% short and (iii) 10 wt% long alpaca fibers, (iv) enormous difference in materials properties based on fiber length at the same mass loading 100. Photographs from ref.…”

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“…However, other materials, including natural materials, can also perform well in this regard. Waste wool was shown to provide comparable reinforcing capabilities to silica if short fibers were used, as well as higher performance with long fibers [7]. Lignin, the polyaromatic materials that reinforces cellulose in trees and other organisms, provided modest reinforcing capacity, but led to improved stability against flames when compared to pure silicone foams [8,9].…”