The fire-retardant properties of the melamine-modified urea–formaldehyde resins mixed with ammonium polyphosphate

Abstract

Fire retardancy of melamine-modified urea–formaldehyde resin (MUF) containing intumescent fire-retardant ammonium polyphosphate (APP) (MUF/APP) was conducted by cone calorimeter with surface treatment of medium density fiberboard (MDF). The results showed that the six MUF resins synthesized with different F/(M + U) and M/U molar ratios containing APP significantly improved the fire retardancy of the MDF by prolonging ignition time, reducing heat release rate and total heat release, and decreasing mass loss rate. The fire-retardant properties of the six synthesized MUF/APP acted differently even though each MUF resin containing the same mass ratio of APP. The melamine content in the MUF should not be too high, otherwise it would decrease the fire-retardant properties of MUF/APP. Based on this study, the higher the APP amounts, the better the fire-retardant performance of the resin was. The fire retardancy of MUF/APP increased with the increase in the amount of glue that spread on the material surface. However, only the amount of glue spread exceeded 250 g/m2, whereas the ability of MUF/APP in inhibiting heat release did not increase significantly any longer.