A biodegradable and biobased intumescent flame-retardant for polylactic acid textiles and composites

Polymeric materials play an important role in our daily life due to their vast application range. However, flame retardancy of such polymers needs to be improved for technical applications due to potential fire risk they possess. Most of the conventional flame-retardants are not biodegradable and if disposed in the landfill, microorganisms in the soil or water cannot degrade them. Hence, they remain in the environment for long time and may find their way not only in the food chain but can also easily attach to any airborne particle and can be toxic for environment and human life. Therefore, the goal of this research work is to promote the use of biodegradable and biobased compounds for flame-retardant applications. Therefore, for this dissertation biobased and biodegradable intumescent flame-retardants for Polylactic acid textiles and composites were developed. A remarkable increase in flame-retardancy in the developed textiles and a significant decrease in heat release rate, total smoke production and effective heat of combustion in composites were observed. The developed products achieved the benchmark properties as defined by EN ISO 11925-2 standard testing method, which certifies the commercial application of this product. Hence, the results in this dissertation confirmed that biodegradable and biobased additives can be used in technical flame-retardant applications with comparable properties to conventional non-biodegradable flame-retardants.