A cocktail strategy for enhancing flame retardance and water resistance of butyl acrylate coatings

Abstract In order to guarantee fire safety and water resistance of the butyl acrylate (BA) coating, an integrated intumescent flame retardant (IFR) was fabricated. At first sodium tri-polyphosphate (STPP) was selected as acid source, and melamine (MEL) was gas source. STPP and MEL were connected by ionic bond. In the obtained product of melamine tri-polyphosphate (MTP), the amounts of hydrophilic groups was obviously reduced. BA coating containing 10 wt% MTP showed 37.3% reduction on water absorption, and the surface looked smoother with little folds. The limiting oxygen index (LOI) of BA coating is 22%; comparatively, LOI for BA/10 wt% MTP increased to 27%. The heat release rate (HRR), smoke production rate (SPR), CO production rate decreased by 20.1%, 5.4% and 33.3% respectively. The flame retardancy mechanism was tried to deduce by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation. It was proposed that MTP promoted the formation of compact char and the release of nonflammable gases.