Silica from Geothermal Waste as Reinforcing Filler in Artificial Leather

Abstract

The main components of artificial leather were polymer, plasticizer, stabilizer, and filler. Silica is one of the commons reinforcing filler for many composites. Meanwhile, amorphous silica is usually precipitate in geothermal power plants and become solid waste in large amounts. The aim of this study is to evaluate the mechanical properties of PVC-based artificial leather by utilizing geothermal silica as reinforcing filler. The plastisol was prepared by mixing the PVC, plasticizer, co-plasticizer, stabilizer, and filler with the amount of 100, 60, 3, 0.5 and 25 phr respectively. Commercial-calcium carbonate and geothermal-silica were used as filler for each sample formulation, then the non-filler plastisol also prepared as a reference. Artificial leather made by coating the release paper using the plastisol then heated at 190°C. The mechanical properties were investigated using a universal testing machine for the elongation, tensile strength and separation force. The surface morphology of each sample were analyzed using SEM. The results show us that the geothermal silica filled artificial leather has better elongation, tensile strength, and separation force compared to the calcium carbonate since there are stronger filler-polymer bonds formed. Therefore geothermal silica has high potential as filler for artificial leather, thus gives an alternative solution for the solid waste problem in geothermal power plant and also provide low-cost source of reinforcing fillers for artificial leather industries.