The investigation on the flame retardancy mechanism of nitrogen flame retardant melamine cyanurate in polyamide 6

摘要

Melamine cyanurate (MCA) flame retardant polyamide 6 (PA6) shows good flame retardancy, but the corresponding mechanisms have not been completely understood. In this paper, Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR), elemental analysis (EA), scanning electronmicroscope (SEM), energy dispersive scanning (EDS), thermogravimeric analysis (TGA) and pyrolysis-gas chromatogram-mass spectrometer (Py-GC-MS) were conducted to investigate the processes including melt-drip phase, gaseous phase and condensed phase of MCA/PA6 system. Compared with original PA6, it is found that MCA flame retardant PA6 mainly undergoes predominant weak bond-breakage degradation forming oligomers rather than oxidative degradation producing low-boiling point fuel as original PA6 does. The produced oligomers can accelerate the formation of the melt drips which effectively removes the combustion heat and latent fuel, also the self-condensation of these oligomers is advantageous to form stable cross-linking structure, thus greatly consolidating the char layer.