Fire resistance and flame retardant materials are not as simple as thought

【Hot attention of Chemical Machinery and Equipment Network ] Materials science is currently a hot field.
With the continuous changes in demand, more and more new materials have come to the world with new technologies, writing various possibilities for us in the future.
Among the many new materials, a large part has been integrated into our lives and brought us many conveniences.
However, the development speed of new materials does not represent the difficulty of research and development of new materials.
In fact, sometimes a small detail contains the profoundness of materials science.

 

Objectively speaking, materials are the basis of all kinds of supplies in our lives.
They accompany our daily necessities, food, shelter, and transportation, and a large part of them has a characteristic-flammability.
What's worse is that in most cases, the flammability of materials does not have an advantage in our lives, and may even become a safety hazard, because a small spark may make everything in vain.

 

But from another perspective, it is not difficult to find that today's materials have made significant progress in fire resistance and flame retardancy, such as kitchen countertops or curtains in some large-scale performances.
These advances are actually based on the development of materials science and the understanding of the causes of some physical and chemical phenomena.
For example, man-made plastics are flame-retardant by adding a non-combustible compound made of hydrated alumina, and early flame-retardant curtains are immersed in flame retardants to avoid the rapid spread of flames when accidentally burned.

 

What's more interesting is that this approach is constantly evolving as the understanding of the causes of physical and chemical phenomena changes.
Still take flame retardant as an example.
In the early days, people understood the elements of combustion as the fire triangle, namely combustibles, combustion-supporting agents, and heat.
For example, paper burns in the air, paper is combustibles, oxygen in the air is the combustion-supporting agent, and the ignition source provides the fire source.
It is the heat that makes the combustible paper burn.
Therefore, the early flame-retardant materials also started from these three aspects to reduce the occurrence or spread of combustion, such as adding volatile materials to reduce the heat provided when the flame touches the material, or adding some incombustible substances to inhibit the flammability of the material.
Sex and so on.

 

　　Now, with the development of technology, human beings have a further understanding of combustion-the combustion tetrahedron.
Judging from the current science and technology, the fire triangle does not take into account the chain reaction during combustion.
In other words, the combustibles, combustion aids, and heat in the traditional concept only consider the conditions under which combustion occurs, but the progress of combustion requires a sustainable chemical reaction.
In other words, if you want to flame retardant or strengthen the fire resistance of the material, it is also possible to directly interrupt the progress of this chemical reaction.

 

　　Of course, if you go deeper, it will involve the process to improve the physical properties of materials.
At present, materials science is still in a stage of continuous development.
Although it has improved in some special properties, it is accompanied by more subtle issues, which is why more and more materialsThe reason why the testing machine was developed.
Materials research may be more complicated than imagined.

 

　　Original title: Fire resistance and flame retardant materials are not as simple as thought