Kathrin Lehmann & Ido Offenbach, Evonik – Evonik sees flame retardants as essential in tomorrow’s world. Every life saved from fire counts. Increasing use of plastics in buildings, transport, makes fire safety vital. Fire safety can become a positive image for industry, enabling compounders to provide FR solutions as an added value.
FR demand is also driven by regulation, for example the EU Construction Products Regulation for smoke emission and smoke toxicity in building materials. Challenges on end-of-life recycling and supply-chain sustainability objectives push towards PIN FRs and polymeric non-halogenated FRs offer a positive profile. PIN FRs can also deliver performance, e.g. high CTI (tracking index) with minerals. Evonik is looking for new PIN FR solutions for high temperature polyamides, where Fs must resist thermal decomposition in processing, and for thermoplastic elastomer esters (TPEE, TPEV-TPS), where mechanical properties are a challenge. This AMI conference enables Evonik to see new R&D ideas which could be future FR solutions, and to connect with other companies sharing the same goals of saving lives from fire and ensuring environmental protection.
Evonik, http://corporate.evonik.com/en/ is one of the world’s leading specialty chemicals companies. Evonik concentrates on high-growth megatrends, especially health, nutrition, resource efficiency and globalization. Evonik produces specialist synergists and provides expertise on formulation to compounders and polymer suppliers.