Fire retardants | additives feature
the company’s innovative Exolit OP (organo phosphi- nate) portfolio of halogen-free flame retardants. Clariant is busy expanding capacity to meet demand, primarily from the electrical and electronics sector. Having already expanded capacity at its existing full-
scale commercial plant in Hürth-Knapsak, near Cologne in Germany, through debottlenecking this year, the company will be starting up its second industrial- scale unit at the site within the first half of 2012. It has also just announced plans for a third facility at the site, which is set to come on stream in 2013 (see this month’s News pages for more details). Products in Clariant’s Exolit line include OP 1312 and
3114 for glass-filled nylons 6 and 66, plus Exolit OP 1311 for TPEs and glass-filled nylon 6. They are being used in commercial applications such as switches, connectors, computer fans and structural parts. Emerging uses include TPE-based cable-sheathing and insulation. As reported in Clariant’s presentation at AMI’s 2011 Fire Retardants in Plastics Conference last June, nitrogen/phosphorous FR synergism has been previously touted as very effective with other types of phosphorous flame retardants and the company sees
significant potential in such synergistic effects occur- ring with its Exolit OP flame retardants.
Replacing HCBD Another brominated flame retardant that is facing imminent phase-out is hexabromo cyclododecane (HCBD), which has a ‘sunset date’ of August 2015 due to REACH restrictions. The additive has been the work- horse flame retardant used in expanded PS (EPS) and extruded PS (XPS) foams for many years. Dow is a major producer of PS foams and decided to
respond to the threat of a phase out of HCBD by developing an alternative technology in-house. The resulting high-molecular weight brominated polymeric flame retardant technology is now being licensed to flame retardant producers as Dow does not plan to produce the additive itself. The first license agreement is with Great Lakes
Solutions which has used the technology for its new Emerald 3000 product. This is described as a sustain- able, polymeric FR that is said to substitute existing technologies with minimal adjustments, while main- taining comparable fire-safety performance at similar
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