The Development Trend of Water-Based Adhesive Flame Retardant

With the continuous development of society, the requirements for flame retardancy in various industries are getting higher and higher, same in the water-based adhesive industry. The water-based adhesive industry mainly includes water-based coatings, water-based pressure-sensitive adhesives, and water-based structural adhesives, which are mainly concentrated in acrylic, epoxy, and polyurethane systems defined from the components.

Since water-based adhesive meets the current environmental requirements, it is well-regarded for future development, leading to the increasing sales volume year by year. But flame retardancy problems also arise, and many companies have paid a lot of effort in conducting in-depth research in this area.

Limited flame retardants can be used for water-based emulsion flame retardancy. At present, the selection is mainly from bromine antimony and phosphorus nitrogen series flame retardants.

(1) Halogen-phosphorus flame retardant adhesive

Halogenated phosphate is the main flame retardant, adding various synergists and flame retardants, which can also be made for water-based flame-retardant coating adhesive. Generally, the fabric made by this kind of flame-retardant adhesive has a soft hand feel, small color difference, slightly sticky, but easy to migrate characteristics.

(2) Bromine antimony flame retardant

Bromine antimony type flame retardant adhesive is the most mature product with the highest cost performance and the widest application. Even if decabromodiphenyl oxide is restricted for use, and hexabromocyclododecane is restricted by REACH and Japan, the industry quickly launched decabromodiphenyl oxide, which allows bromine antimony products to occupy the largest market share. The main problem with bromine antimony flame retardant adhesive now is environmental hazards. For example, heavy metals such as arsenic and lead in antimony trioxide are easily exceeded. At the same time, the flame retardant industry has also introduced many synergists that replace antimony trioxide. Bromine antimony type flame retardant glue has an effect on light and heavy fabrics in vertical burning tests, but it has a great impact on the hand feel, color and style of light fabrics. For soft chairs and sofa fabrics tested according to BS5852 standard, ordinary bromine antimony type flame retardant glue has unsatisfactory effect.

(3) Halogen-free phosphorus-containing organic flame-retardant adhesive

There are many halogen-free phosphorus-containing organic flame retardants, such as RDP, BDP, XDP, CU and other commodities, as well as a large number of macrocyclic or double helical phosphides and cyclic phosphates that are in the experimental synthesis stage. Halogen-free flame retardant manufacturers believe that this type of halogen-free phosphorus-containing organic flame-retardant glue has a good effect in certain flame-retardant fields. The condensation phase carbonization effect is strong, but the preparation of flame-retardant glue is slightly difficult and the water resistance of coated fabrics still needs to be improved.

(4) Phosphorus-nitrogen type flame-retardant adhesive

Phosphorus-nitrogen type flame retardants are quite popular. There are both inorganic APP/MPP/MP etc., as well as organic phosphorus-nitrogen type flame retardants. This type of flame-retardant coating glue has slightly weak gas-phase flame-retardant activity and large accidental results in flame-retardant tests. The durability of flame retardancy needs to be improved. It is necessary to introduce and develop synergists and crosslinking agents with good performance.

In summary, there are not many available flame retardants at present, and it is difficult for new monomers to emerge in the flame retardant industry in recent years. They can only rely on multiple experiments to find out the best combination of flame retardants to meet today's demand for water-based emulsion flame retardancy.