Bioinspired growth of iron derivatives on mesoporous silica: effect on thermal degradation and fire behavior of polystyrene

Abstract

Aiming to investigate the influence of pore property of mesoporous material on thermal degradation and fire behavior of polystyrene (PS), the ultrafine iron derivatives were uniformly grown on the interior wall of SBA-15 via the coordination-induced assembly by bioinspired polydopamine (PDA). The resultant SBA-15@PDA@Fe was verified by various characterizations with the dominant component of FeOOH. Compared with PS composites with SBA-15, PS composites with SBA-15@PDA@Fe revealed the notably divergent alteration in thermal and thermal-oxidation degradation behavior, which was determined by the changed pore property. The iron derivatives in SBA-15 mesopores possessed the stronger affinity to aerobic volatiles than anaerobic volatiles (via π–π coordination), which inhibited the release of oxidatively decomposed products and enhanced thermal-oxidation stability. In addition, SBA-15@PDA@Fe was capable to preferentially improve limiting oxygen index, accompanied by the decrease of smoke production through suppressing smoke precursors. The glass transition temperature (T g) of PS/SBA-15 was slightly increased via the bioinspired modification.