Abstract
In this paper an experimental investigation on fire retardancy of a new polymer nanocomposite derived from organic montmorillonite and exolit fire retardant in an acrylonitrile- butadiene-styrene copolymer by analyzing the flammability and fire behavior is described. The samples were prepared by melting and mixing nanocomposites and fire retardant in different concentrations in an acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene base polymer. It was found that using only one component (organic montmorillonite or fire retardant) the burning stops in 10 s on the sample. Confirmation of synergy in flammability by combining both montmorillonite and flame retardants was noticed and is discussed regarding the flame-retardant mechanisms assessed by means of the Limiting oxygen index (LOI), UL 94, and cone-calorimeter methods. The acrylonitrile- butadiene-styrene preparation with 15–20 wt% fire retardant and 1–2 wt% organic montmorillonite reached a UL-94 V-0 classification, contrasting with the pure acrylonitrile- butadiene-styrene and the acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene with 15 wt% fire retardant and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene with 1–2 wt% organic montmorillonite formulations, which completely burned. Finally, the samples showed a very good synergy going to a higher reduction of the peak heat release rate and to a minimum mass reduction, as obtained from cone calorimeter tests.
Highlights
Polymers are known for relative high flammability, most often accompanied with the production of smoke during combustion
The Limiting oxygen index (LOI) and UL-94 tests results are summarized in Table 3 where it can be seen that adding solely 15% fire retardant (FR) to the recycled acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer (ABS) (reABS) affected the nanocomposites LOI, by increasing it by 7%
When the FR content was as low as 15 wt%, the LOI value increased to 25.5% indicating a significant influence of FR on LOI
Summary
Polymers are known for relative high flammability, most often accompanied with the production of smoke during combustion. ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) generates heavy smoke and soot with lack of char formation. Improving the fire-retardant behavior of polymers is of critical importance for specialists. Many authors have combined ABS with different fire retardants [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] as well as different clays in order to enhance the synergy between the components [13]. One of the most used clays is the organic montmorillonite (OMT) [13]. Several researchers tried to reduce the polymers’ combustibility by adding different fire retardants
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