A Non-Toxic Composite Flame Retardant

Sunocs LLC proposes to develop a non-toxic; low cost nanocomposite flame retardant (FR) that can be used in current building materials including flexible and rigid polyurethane foam, high impact polystyrene, and expandable polystyrene. The innovation of this proposal is to use a non-toxic, larger vaporization heat agent that will form a fuel dilution protective layer which will inhabit and stop the polymer combustion process. The primary focus of this Phase I project is to synthesize the composite structure and to demonstrate the flame retardant performance by achieving equivalent performance to current halogenated FRs in terms of burn test ratings. The compatibility of this flame retardant with building materials will be demonstrated by synthesizing plastic foam articles loaded with the proposed composite flame retardant.