Layered double hydroxides used as flame retardant for engineering plastic acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS)

Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) resin is widely used as an important engineering thermoplastic polymer in various industrial applications, but suffers from easily burning and generating a large amount of smoke and toxic gases. Here we report a utilization of hydrotalcite-like MgAl- and ZnMgAl-layered double hydroxides (MgAl- and ZnMgAl-LDHs) as an inorganic flame retardant to ABS resin. The LDHs were prepared by a scalable method involving separate nucleation and aging steps (SNAS). The performances of the LDHs/ABS composites were evaluated by measuring limiting oxygen index (LOI), smoke density (Dm), heat release rate (HRR), and average mass loss rate (av-MLR). The results obtained show that both LDH/ABS composites exhibit higher LOI and lower Dm values, lower values of pk-HRR and av-MLR, and a prolonged combustion time, in comparison with the pristine ABS. Comparison between MgAl- and ZnMgAl-LDH-containing composites shows that the introduction of Zn2+ is able to facilitate flame retardance, smoke suppression efficiency, and tensile strength elongation rate of the ZnMgAl-LDH/ABS composite. Our results show that LDHs may be used as a type of promising inorganic flame retardant to enhance smoke suppression and flame retardant for ABS resin. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.