With an interest in meeting the evolving needs of our customers, The Materials Group has engineered plastics that meet ever-increasing performance standards, including more sustainable and environmentally friendly products.
Basalt fiber is a drawn, continuous fiber similar to glass (i.e., fiberglass) and to fibers made from carbon or aramid. It is structurally similar to E-glass fiber but offers performance, weight, cost and environmental benefits that make it an ideal reinforcement for a wide range of specialty plastic applications.
TMG offers chopped Basalt fiber reinforced nylon (Optilon) and polypropylene (Optipro) compounds and continues development of other polymers. Basalt can be custom compounded with other fillers like carbon fiber or glass fiber to meet unique performance criteria.
Learn more about Basalt fiber-reinforced polymers below or contact TMG for assistance with your unique application.
BASALT ROCK
CHOPPED BASALT FIBER
RESIN COMPOUNDED WITH
CHOPPED BASALT FIBER
How it’s Made
Basalt is a natural occurring product that is the only raw component required for Basalt fiber production. No secondary materials are needed to create Basalt fiber like with glass, which requires the mining of several components such as silica sand, limestone, iron oxide, and feldspar.
Basalt fiber is made from Basalt rock, which is a natural, extrusive igneous rock formed by lava. To produce the fiber, mined Basalt rock with a particular purity level is first washed, crushed, and then placed into a furnace at a temperature of approximately 1500°C. The resulting melt is extruded through a "bushing", a precious metal block with thousands of microscopic holes, each producing a single filament. Upon leaving the bushing, the fiber filament hardens, a sizing is applied to optimize adhesion to the matrix material, and then fiber filaments are wound into a strand.
Basalt Fiber Applications
Basalt fiber-reinforced plastic applications are very diverse and can be used across various industries including aerospace and defense, automotive and transportation, aviation, building and construction, electronics, energy generation, industrial, insulation and thermoacoustic, shipbuilding, and sporting goods.
Applications include:
Automotive parts
Structural composites
Highway reinforcements
Buildings
Seawalls
Bridges
Turbine blades
Kayak paddles
Exhaust system insulation
Prosthetics
Orthotics
In automotive applications, it is used as a chopped discontinuous fiber compounded into injection moldable thermoplastics.
Basalt fiber, both chopped and continuous, provides superior mechanical properties compared to glass fiber for injection moldable thermoplastics used in a variety of automotive parts. Specifically, it offers improved tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact properties compared to currently used materials. Basalt fiber offers a clear value proposition in nylon resins as a replacement for existing filled materials. Basalt fiber can be blended with other fibers providing an excellent balance of cost and performance when targeting structural automotive applications.
Basalt Fiber Benefits
The balance of strength and stiffness from Basalt fiber can lead to potential weight savings over other filler technologies. As an injection moldable thermoplastic compound compared to a glass fiber filled product, the advantages are improved tensile, impact, and flexural strength at the same product density. Basalt fiber is a more environmentally sustainable product for companies seeking to reduce carbon footprint. The manufacture of basalt fiber produces virtually no emissions due to low fusion loss, yielding a 50% reduction in emissions compared to traditional glass fibers.
Basalt fiber-filled end use products are typically a drop-in replacement for current glass or carbon fiber-filled products and integrate smoothly into most production processes configured for glass fiber materials.
Basalt fiber-filled thermoplastics provide an excellent value and balance of mechanical properties offering an environmentally friendly filler technology which may lead towards achieving cost, weight, and sustainability targets for parts made with basalt fiber-reinforced nylon or polypropylene.
Basalt Fiber Properties
Comparable properties vs. E-glass fibers in thermoplastic compounds
Excellent balance of stiffness and ductility
Performs well in extreme temperatures
Low water absorption
Electrically non-conductive
Good UV stability
Excellent chemical resistance
Low coefficient of thermal expansion
Better sound insulation than E-glass fibers
Won’t rust, highly resistant to alkalis, acids and salt
