Thermal Degradation of Particleboards Incorporated with Colemanite and Common Boron-based Fire Retardants

Abstract

Fire-resistance and thermal degradation were evaluated for particleboards incorporated with colemanite and common boron-based fire retardants (zinc borate and boric acid:borax mixture). The main purpose of this study was to suggest an alternative fire retardant to be used in particleboards with low cost and considerably lower environmental impact compared to common boron-based fire retardants. For this purpose, the colemanite mineral was chosen as a raw boron mineral because of its good fire performance demonstrated previously in wood-plastic composites. The test compounds were incorporated into the furnish during the particleboard manufacturing process. Fire performance tests and thermal degradation analysis were then performed in the treated particleboard specimens. Mass loss calorimeter tests were applied to determine the oxidative thermal degradation properties of the produced particleboards, whilst thermogravimetric analyses were used to evaluate the non-oxidative thermal behavior of the particleboards. The lowest peak heat release rate and the highest activation energy values were recorded for the boric acid:borax mixture-incorporated particleboards at a loading level of 10%. Overall the results showed that colemanite had a lower fire-retardant property in the particleboards compared to the common boron-based compounds tested in the study.

The Effect of Colemanite on Thermal Properties of Recycled Polyethylene

“…As expected, LOI values are increased with the increasing amount of colemanite from 23% to 31% [11].…”

“…As shown in Fig. 2 determined normalized peak values in DSC indicate that endothermic melting peaks were reduced depending on the amount of polyethylene [11]. Figure 3 shows that the softening point at 110 • C under 0.1 N constant force.…”

A Review of Environmentally Friendly Approaches in Fire Extinguishing: From Chemical Sciences to Innovations in Electrical Engineering

“…Minerals such as tincalconite, colemanite, and ulexite are seen to be used as boron minerals [ 90 ]. Terzi [ 91 ] produced wood composites using colemanite and common boron-based flame retardants. For this, they used a mixture of zinc borate, boric acid, and borax.…”

“…For this, they used a mixture of zinc borate, boric acid, and borax. The study showed that boron-based compounds have a better fire-retardant property than colemanite [ 91 ]. In other studies, in which injection-molded wood flour or polypropylene composites were combined with boron compounds with different contents, borax/boric acid and zinc borate and phosphate compounds, and mono and diammonium phosphates, were used [ 92 , 93 ].…”

Influence of boron bearing fillers on flame retardancy properties of huntite hydromagnesite filled ductile PLA biocomposites

“…Colemanite (Col), a naturally occurring boron mineral, is a promising flame retardant additive in plastics. It was employed as a primary flame retardant agent in epoxy resin [26], biocomposite applications [27][28][29], and ethylene vinyl acetate [30]. It was also employed as a synergistic additive with brominated flame retardant [31], intumescent based flame retardant [32] and ATH [33,34].…”