Flame-Retardant Graphene Foam

Abstract

Halogenated flame-retardant materials have come under fire in recent years because of concerns they have negative health and environmental impacts. Knowing that graphene has worked well as a flame-retardant additive for polymers, researchers in China and the U.S. wondered if they could make a fire-resistant material composed primarily of the carbon allotrope. A team led by Liangti Qu of Beijing Institute of Technology and Liming Dai of Case Western Reserve University prepared an ultralight foam made of graphene and phosphorus oxide and phosphorus nitride nanoparticles (ACS Nano 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b06710). The scientists prepare the flame-retardant material by mixing a graphene oxide solution with hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene and turning the blend into foam via a freeze-drying process. This method, they note, has the advantages of being simple, scalable, and environmentally friendly. They then expose this material to a flame, which transforms the graphene oxide into graphene and eliminates chlori...