Studies on Flexible Polyurethane Foam with improved Flame Retardancy

Abstract

Most of the domestic (interior decoration) and industrial systems use polyurethane (PU) based material.
Flexible polyurethane foam (PUFF), a PU derivative is versatile because of its wide applications in many aspects and the
main drawback of PUFF is its inflammability. The combustibility nature may end up with the fire hazard and accidents.
The fire related accidents may be prevented by incorporating a suitable flame retardant (FR) in PUFF. The presence of
flame retardants (FRs) mainly postpones the flashover which lessens the intensity of the burning rate. Brominated
halogen based decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE) is selected as FR in this present study. decaBDE is incorporated as
a FR to subsume the FR characteristics in PUFF in order to overcome the fire related accidents which is alarming in
current condition. The composition of decaBDE was varied from 1 % to 5 % in order to assay the effect of added FR in
the laboratory based developed PUFF using polyol and isocyanate as the precursors. The effect of addition of decaBDE
in PUFF was studied by analysing mechanical property (tensile strength, rebound resilience), physical property
(density), thermal property (thermogravimetric analysis-TGA) and flammability test (UL 94). The cell structure
(morphology) and the presence of functional groups in the developed PUFF were confirmed by using optical microscope
and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) respectively. The paper reports that the developed PUFF confirms
the improved FR characteristics than the unmodified (without addition of FR) PUFF .