Abstract
Marble powder is a hazardous byproduct of marble industries, which are abundant in the western part of India. It has limited outlets for reuse and is causing severe environmental pollution. An effort has been made to convert this waste marble powder to a useful ingredient for rubber compounds. Accordingly, a chemical treatment has been done to this marble powder and a new material has been derived which is composed of carbonates of mainly calcium and partly magnesium. This material is named as Treated Marble Powder (TMP). TMP is characterized using different analytical techniques and also, to have a comparison with the commercially available whiting (a filler of similar kind for rubber compounds), it is studied in a typical NR/CIIR based innerliner compound for tubeless tyres. Composition analysis reveals that TMP contains 83% calcium carbonate and 14% magnesium carbonate. Compared to raw marble powder and whiting, it has got higher surface area, which is achieved through the chemical treatment. It is also observed that this new material TMP provide some significant advantages to the innerliner compound over whiting, such as higher scorch safety and elongation at break and lower air permeability. Due to these benefits, TMP can be an effective alternative to whiting and by this way, it also generates a new avenue for reuse of waste marble powder to minimize the environmental pollution.
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