Synthesis Of Rigid Polyurethane Foams With Palm Oil Based Flame Retardant Polyols

Abstract

A new method of introducing Palm oil based flame-retardant polyols (POFPL) into polyurethane foams was explored in this paper.Palm oil was alcoholyzed with glycerol.And epoxidation of glycerolysis Palm oil was carried out by formic acid and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).The flame-retardant polyols were gotten though ring-opening reaction with diethyl phosphate.A novel Palm oil-based polyurethane foam has been prepared by a one-shot process with and without POFPL.The structure of POFPL was characterized by FT-IR and 1 HNMR and the two studies exhibited characteristic peaks for POFPL.The thermal degradation and fire behaviour of polyurethane foams were investigated by limiting oxygen index (LOI), cone calorimetry test and thermogravimetry analysis.It has been shown that although the content of P element is only about 3%, the fire retardant incorporated in the Palm oil molecule chain increased thermal stability and LOI value of polyurethane foam can reach to 24.3% without any other flame retardant.The compression strength of polyurethane foam was also improved with the increase of flame-retardant polyols.Morphology of polyurethane foams was examined by scanning electron microscope(SEM) and found to be displayed the regular size and high percentage of close area of the cell.Therefore, rigid foams from Palm oil-based flame retardant polyols appear suitable for a wide range of applications.