Flame Retardants: Background and Effectiveness

Flame Retardants: Background and Effectiveness

Fire safety can be achieved by means of active or passive fire protection. Passive fire protection involves using materials or products with superior fire performance so as to either minimize the probability of ignition or, if ignition does occur, minimize the damaging effects of the resulting fire. Flame retardants offer one way of providing passive fire protection.

When a combustible material (often a polymer) is used in applications where fire safety is important, the lack of intrinsic fire safety must be addressed to provide passive fire protection. There are four possible approaches, the first two involving flame retardants.

Adding flame retardants (i.e., using additive flame retardants)

Creating new materials with better fire performance though syntheses of variations of the material (i.e., using reactive flame retardants)

Blending or otherwise compounding the material with other materials with better fire performance (i.e., creating blends or mixtures)

Encapsulating the material or separating it from potential exposure to the heat insult (e.g., using barriers).

Typical applications where fire safety is critical include consumer products (such as upholstered furniture or mattresses), electrical and electronics (such as wire and cable, circuit boards, computer or appliance housings), and building products (such as interior finish, insulation or roofing materials)

WHAT ARE FLAME RETARDANTS?

Brominated flame retardants are probably the most efficient ones: a small proportion of a brominated additive or of a reaction that partially brominates the substrate polymer is often enough to cause a very significant effect on fire performance. The most common mechanism of action of brominated flame retardants is thermal breakdown to form free radicals that react, in the gas phase, and inhibit the chain reactions whereby the decomposition products of combustible materials propagate combustion. The mechanism involves converting very reactive free radicals into ones that are much less reactive.

We are therefore developing a series of non-halogen flame retardants for textile back coating. These products were historically classified as Environmentally Hazardous Substances.There is no change in their flame retardant performance or processing characteristics.

 Young Yao

Marketing development manager

Zhejiang Ruico Advanced Materials Co., Ltd. (Stock No.873233)

Add: No.188, Liangshan Road, Linghu Town, Nanxun District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China 313018

Phone: +86 (572) 2903236

Fax: +86 (572) 2905222

WhatsApp: +86 15088303595

Wechat: 18458299199

Website: www.ruicoglobal.com

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