Document Qggzw4dvKG4vBaOn5g3BZ8a26

BFG TECHNICAL DOCUMENT B.F.Britt Cktalttl Ctaaaiy A 0IVHI9V Of Tk( F GOOOAICh COBFANT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1978 1HTEIOUTIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON FLAitmiun h rm retarpamts TOIOMTO. ONTARIO. CANADA by Arthur W. Mclow UEAF.COXj;:;! m3 KSMKR udvRy -Z1M- JfWlTjp hNtftfk HkH ______ Dm Hn ALTC 07 O'Mara 6. iBlth - K. To C. Tnoink ft. Brow K. B. Bloor/J. 8 TCitfS06TZ 42878 '1 ff IRVlA BFG16959 ! -1- Pro)ect 795' Mav JO. 1978 SUJMARY This was a very interesting and stimulating conference. The eaphasls was distinctly on the flanc and saoke performance of thermoplastics. Fabric and foaa problems were not given as much coverage. The presentations from academia were very poor. There was a general lack of interest In the ^..yslcs of fire. This was strictly a Canadlan-Amerlcan affair. The announced European papers were withdrawn to be presented at Copenhagen in mid-July. The beat and most pertinent paper was presented by Lum of Bell Labs. He studied HC1 and benzene evolution by thermally decomposing PVC directly into a mass spectrometer Inlet. He shows benzene evolves In two stages. The earlier stage comes off sight aftaT the HC1 sad la ca. K of the bemsene total. In contrast PVC smoke retarded with MoO, drastically reduced the second benzene stage end moved the first stags up to coincide with the HC1 evolution. The worst paper was the lest--a DOT contracted study by Boeing on the characteristics of electrical wire and cable In rapid transit environs. It used very poor physical evidence and reasoning. It condemned PVC and poly olefine while touting asbestos and nice. The very Important Intermediate rankings were not released. The fete of this study In the hands of DOT should he followed to protect omrselvas from Its falsa evidence and poor logic. G. ni --nf Zcole Polytochalous. Montreal. Basically working in glass reinforced polyester for the Montreal Metro on contract. Has very unsophisti cated la the application of physics to a fire hazard analysis, la has evidently developed some very high performance materials using extremely high concentrat lone of Inorganic components. Ha bemoaned the Inability to predict performance of composites from the performance of the components. u * HMlitt Af1--'f*--* Chemical Corn, of Pleasanton. California mss ImriMMlsg s sehsfl refs for prorssnsd hyrtrarail si fins Basically, they have a ssnree of nsiwrallj occurring hydrated bauxite. It differs from hydrated slialae nslnly la ice mack Highly iron content ftPfX) which makes It s red color. At s 221 cent reduction, than ho presented flimsy evidence of ca 221 less effective materiel. Zt produced huff to off-white pleotlcs. There was very little know ledge of processing characteristics. The meter of hydrated bauxite Is mot as tightly hound as la alndaa. Us mala thrust was that hydrated aluntas production le strictly a By prodmrt sad will mot grow at the rate Its use lacrosses. They feel they haws an alternative aatarlal. I feel that this naterlel any be an adegnate rspisfemr la rug underlay but there might be s processing problem. 21905002 BFG16960 -2- Projsct 7952 ,May 30 1978 Mr. Frank Roberta of ths Toronto Transit system gave the paper by Bonners and AIlender of Mstro-Camacll Ltd., Birmingham, England. Basically a review paper, the main thrust was to appraise small, laboratory scale tests vs. the needs of overall fire safety In a transit system. Their proposal was to use the temperature at which a material has an oxygen index of 212. Dover Chemical Co., Ohio Introduced its proprietary chlorinated resin and oil. Chlores 760 and Paroll 160 for polystyrene and plasticized PVC. respectively. All data was UL-94. Chlores 760 also decreased polyolefin drip. Velalcol Cham. Corp. of Chlcato was touting a proprietary fire retardant, VCC48. 1 was Impressed with their performance data such as only a IS phr loading in polypropylene gave a V-0 rating to a 1/16 Inch sample. The additive Is 7Z P and S3! r. A. 1. Cromsov oi American Cranamlde talked about the synergism of various phoephonlim salts with sfinlum polyphosphate (APP) la olefin and styrenic polymers. Apparent condensed phiwe activity was concluded from the similar performance lm Oxygen and MaO atmosphere. W P H sofa and Jem Schuarcs. both of ML Industries, gave two good, separate papers on thn action ef Ongard II la semirigid PVC (20-30 phr OOP). Clsmeats mas narhaalstickily erlamtad. Us TGA data showed Ongard 11 gave faster PVC dscenpseltlsa at lamer temperature and Increased char yield la a nitrogen sOMfhen. Psrthstmors, ca 75X of the Ongard II was left la the char and SI was aaesmated for la the soot collected. They propose the smoke reduction Is centOi hy the large decrease In beaseae production when Ongard II la used, smgfer, they had as explanation for the large dropoff in benaene reduction la ggflag from 400*C to S00*C. Schwarca talked mainly about the mathematics of synergism. Overall, la semirigid PVC, Ongard II was synergetic with antimony amide la raising the oxygen Index but was not synergetic In reducing the IBS anohe dwaber ratings. BFG16961 21905003 - J- Project 795.! "jv 30, 1978 I feel R. M. Ua ot Bill Labs gave the best paper. He studied the vacuum pyrolysis of scmlplastlclzed PVC (essentially unfilled wire and cable compound). The off-gases from the temperature programed PVC samples went directly Into s quadrapole mass spectrometer. There was no CC interface so very rapid scans were possible. This Is really the way to do It! Haybe you have to be a monopoly to replace corroded mass discriminators! He has just completed adding computerized data acquisition, so his precision, mass range and analytic repetition are all Improved dramatically. He is Just now gearing up for determination of absolute yields. He compared PVC with and without MoO,. His first experiments followed HC1, benzene and toluene and saturated allphatics. Without MoOs, at low temperature, ca 220*C, he got HC1 evolution followed by a small (ca 3-8X) fraction of benzene evolution. By 260* the major evolution of benzene, toluene and hydrocarbona occurred. The addition of MoO, gave a 90Z decrease in benzene! But that 10X which waa left came off with the catallzed evolution of HC1 at ca 200*C. In other worda, the MoOt not only catallzed the HC1 evolution, but it also moved the benzene evolution timing up to coincide with that of the HC1 evolution. Antimony oxide did not produce this effect. I asked Lum if the early benzene fraction came from plasticizer. He said limited initial rigid PVC trails looked similar. Lum spemt a great deal ->f effort to obtain kinetic data on BC1 and benzene evolution. He mould then d HCl/d PVC or dgH/dPVC vs PVC cone, to various pernors. Correllatlon coefficient was the entire criteria for selecting the power. The K1 evolution was dependent to the 3/2 order. Benzene evolution went from 2nd order with Ba 66 b cal/nola to a MoO, Induced 1st order kineti. with la * 37.0 b cal/mole. Sb,0, did not significantly change the results. Actually I feel hie kinetic interpretations are very shakey. Even the kinetic order is not nail established by the temperature prograamed experiments. Isothermal experiments are planned. These experiments should give us better data. Ixtanded molecular mass scans show no evidence of any volatile molybdansm containing speclee. Ho residue analyses were made. Uw, Clements and Moore (of Climax) all feel their respective data are in agreement with no serious conflicts. The tun step benzene evolution appears to be In conflict with the work of Irnanhs and Lattimer hare at BFC. fl, Bmlo Park. Calif., presented the animal testing work dome SfUT This tecauque waa done without sponsorship and did not appear to be ttf fanllty temicologlcal work. fHgflamd rats were used for testing incapecitation. Samples were burned at A w/euT fa 30/30 air-1,. Ho PVC products have yet been rated. Hood and polyamide foam are good at a 1.33 rating. Urethane foam waa somewhat worse at 3-11 (which meant that there was so HCH, BC1 or H0Z problems). Toxicity seemed due to carboa monoxide. However polysulfone was much worse with a rating of 16. times Martin feels that polysulfone is really much safer than wood, be feels these ratings should be normalized by some measure of buraability such as Archie Tewarson's T factor. BFG16962 21905004 Project 7952 Hav 10, 1978 Fred Moore of Climax presented no data we haven't seen except that he confirmed that .it least 90t of the aolybdema remains tn the char when MoO, is added to PVC. FR31 is a supported Mo and Zn material. All pertinent data was obtained In TGA experiments. Polyester data was absolutely minimal. S. J. Monte of Kenrlch Petrochemicals gave possibly the most dynamic talk of the meeting. Organic tltanate coupling agenta will solve virtually any problem! Hir basic lesson was that rocks don't burn. And the coupling agents can make highly inorganic filled systems behave very well. They have a wide variety of agents avails tie. A number do not require a separate treatment of fillers-Just add during regular mixing! 1 feel there will be definite applications in many significant markets when the technology la all worked out. J. H. Matlll of Alarle'a group at Unlv. of Pittsburgh waa a total flop. He had nothing to say and took an hour to ramble about. I only mention this worth less paper because Alarle has such an Impact with plastic toxicity studies at the MBS. A. Taylor of Boeing gave possibly the worst paper of any msrlt. It mss an $89K, 1976 contract #1221 from DOT/Transportation Systsms Center. Small seals lab tssts for materials were used to evaluate available materials for wire and cable applleatlone. IBS amoke chamber, electrical breakdown and some sort of toxic gas evolution were the three sole criteria uaad. Toxic gas evolution was the only evidence Boeing generated--they used Drager tubeal Bo calibration or lnterferancas were checked for or used. Bvervone knows these don't work in the presences of halides sad adds and aldehydes of combustion. After using the tubes, they used a toxicity calculation of questionable validity. They used published listings on concentrations of LDSO and total death (indescrlalaate of exposure time) for weighting factors. Combining the three properties most heavily weighted their evaluation of toxicity. Ho overall details or rankings were given until DOT release. Be said PVC, polyolefins and Baler were worst and asbestos, nice and silicone rubber were the best. Overall ho liked Kapton or a Kapton-sllleone rubber composite beat. While I would not argue with his favorite and best choices--they hove merit-- I worry deeply about any rankings given naterlals in the note economically attractive choices. The data was very poorly obtained and yet could still be used against naterlals unfairly by tl 21905005