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An investigation of inorganic tin flame retardants which suppress smoke and carbon monoxide emission from burning brominated polyester resins
Author(s) -
Cusack P. A.,
Monk A. W.,
Pearce J. A.,
Reynolds S. J.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
fire and materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-1018
pISSN - 0308-0501
DOI - 10.1002/fam.810140105
Subject(s) - fire retardant , char , tin , smoke , materials science , polyester , combustion , chemical engineering , carbon monoxide , antimony oxide , tin oxide , zinc , chemistry , organic chemistry , composite material , oxide , metallurgy , catalysis , engineering
In view of the current demand for novel, non‐toxic, flame‐ and smoke‐ suppressant systems for synthetic polymers, certain inorganic tin compounds have been evaluated as fire retardants in a series of commercial brominated polyester resin formulations. The results obtained clearly show that zinc hydroxystannate (ZnSn(OH) 6 ) and zinc stannate (ZnSnO 3 ) impart beneficial properties to the polyesters in terms of flame retardancy and smoke/carbon monoxide suppression, and the improvements in performance are, in general, superior to those exhibited by tin ( IV ) oxide or antimony ( III ) oxide. The surface area and degree of dispersion of the fire‐retardant additive has been shown to have a marked effect on its efficiency and, in this connection, colloidal tin ( IV ) oxide is found to exhibit significantly improved flame‐retardant properties compared to powdered SnO 2 . Simultaneous thermal analyses (TG/DTG/DTA) and related mechanistic experiments have shown that tin additives markedly increase the amount of char formed during combustion, whereas Sb 2 O 3 , a vapour‐phase flame retardant, has little effect on char formation. The zinc stannates also appear to exhibit a significant vapour‐phase activity, and this may account for their flame‐retardant superiority to SnO 2 itself.