Cleaner production of flame-retardant-glass reinforced epoxy resin composite for aviation and reducing smoke toxicity

Abstract

The flame-retardant glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites have been examined for the aviation and defense industry recently. The fire risks and fire hazards on the environment and human health must be taken into consideration in the case flame-retardant usage when improving their thermal performance. In this study, the flame-retardant glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites were produced with low cost environmentally friendly flame retardant (red phosphorus) and smoke suppressants (zinc borate and aluminum three hydrate) instead of high-cost and harmful halogenated flame retardants. The possible fire risk and hazard of the flame-retardant glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites were investigated with the laboratory scale fire risk test methods. The simultaneous usage red phosphorus, zinc borate and aluminum three hydrate improved the glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites thermal resistance decreasing heat release rate value with larger than 55% in the Ohio State University-Heat Release Rate, test in parallel with Cone Calorimeter. These composites passed from Vertical Burning test with a burn length lower than 152 mm for 60-s test with 20%, 16% and 16% loading ratio respectively. The toxic smoke and gas emissions released from the composites under thermal exposure were meaningfully reduced as a results of fire hazard analysis in the Smoke Density Cabinet with the instrumental gas detection and Microtox. Volatile organic compounds, toxic compounds and irritating gases released in the fire conditions were suppressed by approximately 65%. This study demonstrated the holistic cleaner production approach that did not ignore the environment and human health effects of fire risk and hazards on, and could be apply for the all polymer composite requiring thermal resistance, first time in the literature.