Effect of montmorillonite type on mechanical and flame retarded properties of Al(OH)3/ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer composites

Bo Cheng, Dinghua Li*, Fan Wu, Zhaolu Qin, Rongjie Yang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Montmorillonite containing Ca2+ (Ca-MMT) and montmorillonite modified with organic group (Na-MMT) were used in flame retardant ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) with Al(OH)3, respectively. The effect of Ca-MMT was investigated on mechanical, thermal and flammability properties of Al(OH)3/EVA composites, compared with Na-MMT. MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA composites were processed by melt blending in a twin-screw extrude. XRD and TEM show that MMT achieves exfoliation in MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA composites and the exfoliated layer of Ca-MMT is relatively smaller than Na-MMT. Ca-MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA shows better tensile strength and thermal stability than Na-MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA. In Cone calorimeter test, Ca-MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA also performs better than Na-MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA with lower heat release. Moreover, the condensed phase of Ca-MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA exhibits higher thermal insulation through lower and flatter back-temperature curves of CONE, corresponding to the compact and intact residue char surface after CONE. All the evidences indicate that the exfoliation of Ca-MMT in Al(OH)3/EVA is conducive to barrier effect of flame retardancy and calcium ions of Ca-MMT can promote the charring of Al(OH)3/EVA. Finally, fire performance indexes (FPI) of MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA composites were calculated with the ratio of time to ignition (TTI) and heat-release peak value. The FPI data verify that the loading of Ca-MMT remarkably contributes to the increase of FPI, thus fire risk of Ca-MMT-Al(OH)3/EVA is significantly decreased.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2715-2721
Number of pages7
JournalFuhe Cailiao Xuebao/Acta Materiae Compositae Sinica
Volume34
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2017

Keywords

  • Al(OH)
  • Ca-montmorillonite(Ca-MMT)
  • Composite
  • Ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer
  • Flame retardant

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