Flame retardant effects of organic inorganic hybrid intumescent flame retardant based on expandable graphite in silicone rubber composites

In this work, an organic inorganic hybrid intumescent flame retardant (functionalized expandable graphite, FEG) was synthesized and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR). The flame retardant effects of FEG in silicone rubber (SR) composites were investigated by cone calorimeter test (CCT), and the thermal stability of SR composites was studied using TGA. The CCT results showed that FEG can effectively reduce the flammable properties including peak heat release rate (PHRR), total heat release (THR), smoke production rate (SPR), total smoke release (TSR), and smoke factor (SF). An improvement of thermal stability of SR/FEG was also observed. Compared with EG, FEG can further reduce THR, SPR, and TSR of SR/FEG composites in combustion process. Moreover, there is a more obvious intumescent char layer formed from the sample with FEG than the sample with EG at the same loading in SR composites. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.