Studies on development of composite materials to be used as footwear outsole

Footwear industry which has important commercial potential in our country has become significant role in economy as growing constantly share in exports. It is considered one of the most important shortcomings of the footwear industry to insufficient study on the subject academically in order to improve technical features of footwear and produced more comfortable footwear for foot health. In this research, it has been investigated to be used of composite materials which become widespread in many sector, as footwear outsole. With this purpose, the extracts consisting of cup and nails of valonia and valonia wastes grow out of valex tannin production has been used as natural filler while the polyester based thermoplastic polyurethane has been used as polymer matrix of the composites. The properties of produced composites with different proportions in percent by weight have been evaluated by various test and analysis. Consequently, tensile strength of the composites filled with valonia based materials has slightly decreased while the tear strength and hardness features have been improving compared with unfilled TPU sample. The composite sample filled with %10 valonia wastes by weight has the optimal results as physical, thermal and characteristic to be used as footwear outsole.