Preparation and characterization of PVB/pumice and PVB/skoria composites

Polyvinyl butyral (PVB), a resin, is being stronger in binding, sharper in optical clarity, and being able for providing flexibility and toughness. Polyvinyl butyral is served as a material of interlayer in laminated automotive safety glass to prevent glass fragments from being spread out on sudden, damaging and breaking and to make safe from heat or light, resulting of UV radiations or solar energy by diminishing their effects. Volcanic rock is a material primarily composed of aluminum silicate in a crystalline or amorphous form. Volcanic rocks commonly come in the form of scoria and pumice. In this work, PVB/pumice and PVB/scoria composites were synthesized at different particle and mass ratio and characterized using UV-visible light transmittance and thermogravimetric analysis. Also, morphologic and elemental analysis of pumice and scoria were performed using SEM-EDX. Volcanic rocks used in this work are chemically inert and thermally stable. As a result, they did not affect the thermal degradation of PVB. But they decreased the light transparency of the polymer. %0.1 filler content of volcanic rock particles in PVB had very low effect as %10, respectively. But the maximum weight ratio which is % 10 filler content was decreased the transmittance percentage to almost %10 for visible area and to zero for UV region. As a result, these composites can be use as a colored glass fabrication. Also the volcanic rock particles are all natural found in nature and can be discarding to the nature without zero hazards not like dyes which are very toxic to the nature.