Flame retardance and origin of bismaleimide resin composites with green and efficient aluminum phosphates

Abstract

Developing green and high efficiency inorganic flame retardants is the trend of preparing flame retarding polymer composites. Aluminum phosphates (t‐hAP) with uniform, small dimension, and hexagonal structure were facilely synthesized, which have similar size (1–2 μm) but different structures from commercial spherical‐like aluminum phosphate (cAP). The flame retardance of bismaleimide (BD)/t‐hAP and BD/cAP composites were intensively investigated. t‐hAP is proved to have much better flame retarding effect than cAP, but also exhibits advantages over Mg(OH)2 and Al(OH)3. With only 5 wt % addition of t‐hAP into BD resin, the peak and total heat releases as well as total smoke production significantly reduce 42.3, 47.8, and 67.3%, respectively; besides, better data are obtained as the loading of t‐hAP increases to 10 wt %. These attractive data result from three effects induced by t‐hAP. Besides the better protection role of sheet structure, the strong hydrogen bonding between t‐hAP and BD resin endows the composite with good dispersion of t‐hAP and high crosslinking density; moreover, t‐hAP releases H2O and NH3, diluting flammable gases during combustion. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 41089.