Smoke toxicity from combustion products based on polymers containing flame retardant additives

Abstract : The aim of the study supported by the French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development was to evaluate the technical advantages or drawbacks procured by introducing a flame retardant in a polymer. The incorporation of flame retardants (FRs) presents the advantage of reducing the fire hazard due to flame spread, but might increase the toxicity of fire emissions. In fact, the efficiency of flame retardants is real when the benefits from improvement of the fire resistance properties overbalances the undesired formation of noxious / toxic fumes. The originality of the study is to analyse the presence of toxic fumes as resulting from thermal degradation/combustion reactions of FR polymer systems. In this paper, we propose to describe preliminary results on the smoke toxicity from binary association of one polymer (polyvinyl chloride) and one typical flame retardant (antimony oxide or aluminum oxide) during combustion. In particular, we report on the interactions between gases (synergistic, additive or antagonist effects), because smoke is confirmed to be the major threat in accidental fires. The paper is finally a contribution to the analysis of cost/benefit issues of adding FRs in polymer systems considering potential role of related toxic products versus gain in terms of overall fire behaviour.