Novel fire resistant matrixes for composites from cyclic poly(butylene terephthalate) oligomers

The objective of the work is to exploit the processing advantages of c-PBT oligomers, essentially required in industrial practice to produce new, robust, multifunctional hybrid copolymers of c-PBT oligomers in a single reaction-molding step, which will be suitable for the use in continuous fiber composites with excellent flame retardant properties. In this article a series of copolyesters were synthesized by using in situ polymerization of cyclic poly(butylene terepthalate) oligomers (c-PBT) and hydroxyl terminated bisphenols and hydroxylated siloxanes in the presence of a tin catalyst at a moderate temperature. The in situ copolymerization was conducted with various c-PBT/tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (BPADGE) and Carbinol PDMS feed ratios respectively. The copolyesters were characterized by GPC, NMR, and DSC techniques. Pyrolysis-combustion flow calorimeter (PCFC) and pyrolysis gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (PyGC/MS) studies were performed to characterize the fire retardant properties of the copolymers during combustion. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 47:1536–1543, 2007. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers