Some new sulfur-containing materials as putative fire retardants

More than a century ago, Gay-Lussac suggested that ammonium phosphate be used as a fire retardant for theatre curtains and he later changed this to ammonium sulfate. Even though this was one of the earliest fire retardants, there is a dearth of sulfur-containing materials except for those used in polycarbonate. We have felt for some time that sulfur was an element underappreciated in the FR world and finally began an investigation of some sulfur compounds. We have examined three compounds, 2-(1-pyridino-)-1-propane sulfonate, sodium diphenylamine-4- sulfonate and ammonium sulfamate with both PMMA and PS. These have been studied both alone and combined with organically-modified clays (montmorillonites). The results of this investigation will be discussed in this presentation.