Improved fire protection

Flame-retardant plastics can save lives by delaying the spread of a fire, allowing valuable time for firefighting. But flame retardants can achieve their full effect only if the right processing aids are used in the production of the flame-retardant compounds. Jointly with its partners, Evonik has developed suitable formulations and has demonstrated their efficiency in standards-compliant flame-retardant tests.

Fires aren’t all alike. Strange as it may sound, there are highly problematic and less problematic fires. Highly problematic fires, particularly in buildings, are those that spread via electrical installations or via the facade. Especially cable can propagate the fire into rooms that would otherwise be well protected, for example, by a concrete wall or ceiling. Therefore, not only cables but also cable connectors or wall connections need to be based on flame retardants. Highly problematic are also such fires that spread quickly and those in which toxic gases may occur. Therefore, non-halogenated flame retardants based on nitrogen, phosphorous or metal hydroxide gain importance.

Organomodified siloxanes from Evonik’s TEGOMER® and TEGOPREN ® additive range are seen in the flame retardant formulator market as one of the key ingredients to guarantee a good processing in combination with a unique property profile just using 1-2% in the overall formulation.