Preparation and evaluation of cork based composites (cpcs) envisaging new industrial applications

Cork is a natural, versatile, sustainable raw material that has been used in our daily life for many centuries. It is a light and elastic material, practically impermeable to liquids and gases, a thermal and electrical insulator and an acoustic and vibration absorber. Moreover, cork is resistant to rot, innocuous, and it can be compressed with practically no lateral expansion (Poisson's ratio). Macroscopically, cork is made up of layers of alveolate cells, whose cell membranes have a certain degree of impermeability and are full of a gas, usually considered similar to air. It has low thermal conductivity and an average density of around 200 kg/m³, allied with its remarkable chemical and biological stability and good resistance to fire. Due to its notable properties, cork has been used in different industrial applications, such as: cork stoppers, insulation, aerospace applications, architecture, design, among others. Cork adopts different technological transformation processes which can be used in several applications. Among the most significant groups of cork materials available on the market are natural cork, granulates, composite agglomerates and expanded agglomerates. Recently, our group developed different cork-polymer composites (CPCs) with improved properties. In this study, we envisage the development of novel CPCs formulations with optimized properties for specific industrial applications.