Halogen-free and phosphorus-free flame retardants endow epoxy resin with high flame retardancy through crosslinking strategy

Epoxy resin (EPs) has been widely used in many fields in recent years, such as electronics, adhesives, coatings, and so on, which mainly benefiting from its excellent mechanical and chemical properties, low price and easy preparation. However, conventional EPs tend to be flammable, which significantly prevents their applications especially in high flame-resistance required areas. In this work, we introduce nitrile groups and the benzoxazine ring into the flame-retardant, followed by a simple heat treatment for a multiple cross-linking reaction in EPs. The resultant halogen/phosphorus-free and environmentally friendly network not only suppress the migration of the functional flame retardants from the substrate, but also shows much enhanced flame-retardant property, including the UL-94 rate, total heat release and reduced peak heat release rate. As a result, the thermosets can pass the UL-94 V-0 rate and reach a LOI value at 32.7% at a very low addition amount (10 wt%) of this cross-linked flame retardant.

Synthesis and Application Studies of DOPO-Based Organophosphorous Derivatives to Modify the Thermal Behavior of Polybenzoxazine

The DOPO-based flame-retardant additives DOPO-HQ, DOPO-AP and DOPO-Van were synthesized in varying numbers of phenolic hydroxyl groups and amine groups. Moreover, their influence on the polymerization of a bisphenol F-based benzoxazine, as well as the thermal properties of the resulting materials, were studied. All DOPO-based derivatives influenced the polymerization temperature onset with a reduction of up to 20 °C, while thermo-mechanical properties remained high. Surprisingly, phosphorous content below 0.4 wt% significantly improved the reaction against small flames yielding an increase in the limited oxygen index by 2% and a V-0 rating in the UL-94 test. DOPO-HQ proved to be the most effective additive regarding the reaction against small flames at an astonishingly low phosphorous concentration of below 0.1 wt%, whereas DOPO-AP and DOPO-Van simultaneously lowered the polymerization temperature.

Bio-Based Bisbenzoxazines with Flame Retardant Linker

This work explores the strategy of incorporating a highly substituted reactive flame retardant into a benzoxazine moiety. For this purpose, a DOPO-based flame retardant received a chain extension via reaction with ethylene carbonate. It was then reacted with phloretic acid to obtain a diphenol end-capped molecule, and further reacted with furfurylamine and paraformaldehyde to obtain a benzoxazine monomer via a Mannich-like ring closure reaction. This four-step synthesis yielded a partly bio-based halogen-free flame retardant benzoxazine monomer (DOPO-PA-fa). The successful synthesis was proven via NMR, IR and MS analysis. The polymerization behavior was monitored by DSC and rheological analysis both showing the polymerization starts at 200 °C to yield pDOPO-PA-fa. pDOPO-PA-fa has a significant thermal stability with a residual mass of 30% at 800 °C under ambient atmosphere. Furthermore, it reached a V-0 rating against small flames and an OI of 35%. Blended with other benzoxazines, it significantly improves their thermal stability and fire resistance. It emphasizes its potential as flame retardant agent.

Toughening effect and mechanism of polyamide 12 and modified montmorillonite in polybenzoxazine resin

The mechanical properties of polybenzoxazine (PBa) resins were improved by adding polyamide 12 (PA12) and modified montmorillonite (OMMT) as additives. The mechanical properties and thermal stability of PBa and resulting PBa composites were investigated using an Instron universal material testing instrument and dynamic mechanical analysis. The morphologies of the fracture surfaces were characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The results of morphological studies showed that PBa/PA12/OMMT composites exhibit significantly improved mechanical properties and thermal stability compared with that of the pristine PBa. When the OMMT content increased to 1 wt%, the fracture toughness (1.36 MPa·m1/2) and the fracture energy (G IC, 315.76 J·m−2) of PBa/PA12/OMMT-1 composites increased by 67.9% and 181.4%, respectively, compared with those of the pristine PBa. The thermal stability properties demonstrated that the storage modulus and glass transition temperature (T g) of PBa/PA12/OMMT composites gradually increased with the addition of OMMT particles. The scanning electron microscopy results indicated that PBa/PA12/OMMT composites possess a toughening mechanism of crack deflection, with a large bulk of voids and debonding induced by PA12 and OMMT clay particles. Moreover, the OMMT might provide microvoid nucleating sites at its surface to release constrains for shear yielding.

A novel curing agent based on diphenylphosphine oxide for flame-retardant epoxy resin

A phosphorous/nitrogen-containing diphenylphosphine oxide (DPO) derivative (DPO-SS) was designed and synthesized via a two-step reaction of 4,4′-diaminodiphenylsulfone, 2-hydroxy-benzaldehyde, and DPO. The structure of DPO-SS was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 1H and 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry (MS). DPO-SS was used as a flame retardant and curing agent for copolymerizing with diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A. Thermal and flame-retardant properties of the obtained flame-retardant epoxy resin (F-EP) were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis, dynamic thermomechanical analysis, limited oxygen index (LOI) measurement, vertical burning test (UL-94), and cone calorimeter test. Results indicated that all F-EP samples exhibited excellent thermal stability and flame-retardant property. Especially for F-EP with P content of 0.7 wt% (denoted as EP/P-0.7), it achieved high LOI values (32.4%) and UL-94 V-0 rating. Compared with pure EP, all F-EP samples showed lower heat release rate, total heat release, total smoke produce, and little Tg fluctuation. In order to study the flame-retardant mechanism, the char residues were investigated by FTIR, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive spectrometer analysis. The results manifested that DPO-SS acted as flame retardant in both gas phase and condensed phase. Water absorption properties of pure EP and F-EP were also compared through immersion experiments. Results showed that EP/P-0.7 sample had apparently lower water absorptivity than pure EP.

A novel DOPO-containing flame retardant for epoxy resin

A novel halogen-free flame retardant (6,6′-(((methylenebis(4,1-phenylene))bis(azanediyl))bis((4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)methylene))bis(6H-dibenzo[c,e][1,2]oxaphosphinine 6-oxide)(DP-DDM))) was synthesized via a one-pot procedure based on the Pudovik reaction between 9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene 10-oxide and imine directly resulting from 3-methoxy-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde with 4,4′-methylenedianiline (DDM). The thermal curing behaviors of epoxy resins with different contents of DP-DDM were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry under a nonisothermal condition, aimed to suggest an optimized curing procedure in accordance with the property of DP-DDM. These DP-DDM-modified epoxy thermosets under optimized curing procedure showed high glass transition temperature and thermal degradation activation energy. Moreover, their high flame-retarding performance has been found: the epoxy thermosets with a relatively low addition amount of DP-DDM (on account of the phosphorus content of 0.75 wt%) can reach UL 94 V-0 (Instrumental analysis and measurements) rating with limiting oxygen index value of 34.5.

Environmentally friendly fire-resistant epoxy resins based on a new oligophosphonate with high flame retardant efficiency

New fire resistant epoxy resins were prepared. The kinetic processing of thermogravimetric data was performed using Friedman and Vyazovkin methods.

Reaction mechanism and synergistic anticorrosion property of reactive blends of maleimide-containing benzoxazine and amine-capped aniline trimer

Reaction mechanism and synergistic effect on anticorrosion for reactive blends of a maleimide-containing benzoxazine and aniline trimer have been explored.

Syntheses and characterization of two novel 9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene-10-oxide-based flame retardants for epoxy resin

Two novel phosphrous–nitrogen-containing flame retardants (3) and (4) were successfully synthesized from two steps: condensation reaction between 4-aminopenol and 1,4-phthaladehyde (or 4,4′-biphenyldicarboxaldehyde) and addition reaction between the above condensation compounds and 9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene-10-oxide. The structures of (3) and (4) were characterized by Fourier transform infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, and mass spectroscopy methods. The results show that (3) and (4) can serve as co-curing agents of diaminodiphenylmethane (DDM) for the curing reaction of epoxy resin. The epoxy thermosets-containing DDM and (3) or (4) exhibit moderate changes in glass transition temperature, thermal stability, and show improvement in flame retardancy: UL94 V-0 grade can be obtained when phosphorus content of the epoxy thermoset is only 1.0%; the limiting oxygen index of epoxy resin system containing (4) reaches 40.9 when phosphorus content is up to 1.5%.