Preferred zinc-modified melamine phytate for the flame retardant polylactide with limited smoke release

Abstract

Bio-based flame retardants (FRs) have drawn increasing attention for FR polylactide (PLA). Hence, a green and facile method was presented in this work for the synthesis of melamine phytate (MPA), melamine copper phytate (MPACu), melamine zinc phytate (MPAZn), and melamine magnesium phytate (MPAMg). In general, the PLA/MPAZn composite exhibited a better flame retardancy and smoke suppression with an acceptable mechanical property. With the addition of 20 phr MPAZn, the peak of heat release rate (PHRR) was decreased by 45.0% compared with that of neat PLA. Also, TSR of the PLA/MPAZn composite was the lowest among the FR PLA composites in this study. Furthermore, the higher quality char residues played the key role in the synergistic flame retardancy and smoke suppression for the PLA/MPAZn composites. In addition, in this work, we found that the mass loss rate (MLR) was highly related to the heat release rate (HRR).