For a great variety of reasons including sustainability, environmental degradation and fluctuations in petrochemical markets there is increasing interest in producing polymers and polymer additives from renewable agricultural sources. For most applications, polymeric materials must be flame retarded. Traditionally, organohalogen compounds, particularly brominated aromatics, have been popular flame retardants. However, these materials are stable in the environment, tend to bioaccumulate and may pose dangers to human health. For this reason, they are coming under increasing regulatory pressure worldwide. Phosphorus compounds derived from renewable biosources offer several advantages (low toxicity, biodegradability, low cost) as replacements for organohalogen flame retardants. Castor oil is an agricultural commodity produced in large quantities annually. It contains both unsaturation and hydroxyl functionality which may be utilized for conversion of the oil to effective flame retardants for polymeric materials. A series of phosphorus esters, both brominated and nonbrominated, have been prepared, fully characterized using spectroscopic and thermal methods, and shown to be effective flame retardants in DGEBA epoxy resin.

Nontoxic flame retardants from a non-edible plant oil

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.