Atomized calcium carbonate powder including calcite is widely used in plastic, rubber, magnetic paint, a paper industry, and the like as a functional inorganic filler. The reason is due to dispersibility, a caking property, and compressibility characteristics of the atomized calcium carbonate powder, and the use is determined according to the particle shape, the size, and the surface state of the filler. In most cases, it is general to select a particle size of calcium carbonate powder and a shape thereof so as to be appropriate for the use, modify a surface thereof, as needed, and then use it.
In order to use the calcium carbonate powder as the filler as described above, a method of atomizing the powder is applied. However, in this case, there are various problems in actually using the calcium carbonate powder due to an agglomeration phenomenon that the powder has high surface energy in a thermodynamically non-steady state and is lumped. In addition, since most of the atomized powder surfaces are hydrophilic, affinity for most of the organic media that are non-polar is significantly weak, such that there is a limitation in applying the atomized powder to the organic material.
In order to overcome the above-mentioned limitation and improve physical properties of the atomized powder, a method of adsorbing organic fatty acid onto the powder surface has been suggested, but a high temperature activation method requiring consumption of a large amount of energy due to melting point of the fatty acid has been used. This is a large limitation in effectively proceeding a process. Therefore, the development of a surface modification method capable of minimizing energy consumption at room temperature has been demanded.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds