IN THE QUEST FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE SYNERGISTIC MECHANISM OF WASTE MATERIAL IN INTUMESCENT FORMULATIONS

摘要

High safety standards in fire protection for plastics are very often required, but the additional cost of the flame retarded products still limits them largely to institutional sales. The use of waste substances such as Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) catalyst may provide a means to meet standards at lower cost, allowing the end products to find their way into residential and commercial markets. It has been demonstrated that spent FCC catalyst acts as a powerful synergist in intumescent ammonium polyphosphate (APP) and pentaerythritol (PER) formulations. The addition of 5 wt% of the milled catalyst to the APP/PER mixture in a polyethylenic terpolymer matrix has led to a 10 unit increase in LOI values and a significant decrease in the rate of heat release. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the flame retardancy mechanisms involved in the catalyst's synergistic action in intumescent formulations. Possible mechanisms for the synergistic action are investigated in the condensed phase by means of TGA, solid state NMR and FTIR.