Fire Retardancy of Recycled Polyurethane Foam Containing Phosphorus Compounds
Used polyurethane was chemically degraded by treatments with flame retardants such as tris(3-chloropropyl) phosphate (TCPP), triethyl phosphate (TEP), and trimethyl phosphate (TMP). The structure of degraded products (DEP) was analyzed by FT-IR and P-NMR and it turned out to be phosphorus containing oligourethanes. Rigid polyurethane foam was produced by using the degraded products (DEP) as flame retardants. The flammability of recycled rigid polyurethane was investigated. The recycled polyurethane shows a reduced flammability over virgin polyurethane. In order to evaluate flame retardant properties of the recycled polyurethane foams with various amounts of DEP, the combustion parameters of the foam was measured by a cone calorimeter. Scanning electron micrograph of recycled PU shows the same uniform cell morphology as virgin PU.