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Phosphorus-Based Flame Retardants

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Flame - Retardant Polymeric Materials

Abstract

Compounds of phosphorus were recognized as flame retardants at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the French chemist Gay-Lussac recommended ammonium phosphate to prevent the burning of theater curtains. The advent of organic phosphorus compounds as important flame retardants for plastics dates back to the 1910–1920 era, when the extreme flammability of cellulose nitrate was brought under some degree of control by the use of tricresyl phosphate. Tricresyl phosphate was the first major commercial organophosphorus compound. Today, phosphorus flame retardants are among the “workhorse” products in the flame-retardant field, and research is proceeding at an accelerating pace in this area in view of increasingly stringent flame-retardant requirements for plastics and textiles. This chapter encompasses the phosphorus flame retardants which are actually in commercial use or which appear to be at a serious stage of commercial development for plastics and textiles. In addition to these compounds, there have been many thousands of phosphorus compounds suggested in patents and publications as having flame-retardant utility; a survey has been published by Lyons.(1) A particular aspect of phosphorus flame retardancy on which a great deal of work has been done (with only a few commercial products being arrived at) has been the synthesis of addition and condensation polymers from phosphorus monomers. An excellent review of this area was published by Sander.(2)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stauffer Chemical Company, Dobbs Ferry, New York, USA

    Edward D. Weil

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  1. Edward D. Weil
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Israel Fiber Institute, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Jerusalem, Israel

    Menachem Lewin

  2. Bronx Community College of the City University of New York, USA

    S. M. Atlas

  3. Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York, Brooklyn, New York, USA

    Eli. M. Pearce

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© 1978 Plenum Press, New York

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Weil, E.D. (1978). Phosphorus-Based Flame Retardants. In: Lewin, M., Atlas, S.M., Pearce, E.M. (eds) Flame - Retardant Polymeric Materials. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6973-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-6973-8_4

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