Eli Shulman, TOSAF Group, summarised the challenges and solutions found to provide fire-safe (UL94-V0) seats for sports stadiums, where UV resistance, weathering and colour stability are essential. This involves the combination of polymer, flame retardant, colour pigment, light stabilisers and other additives.
TOSAF’s systematic study of various flame retardant and stabilizer performances resulted in development of optimal FR-UV packages that has satisfied demanding criteria fixed by FIFA, national sports federations and purchasers, with to date no problems of de-coloration encountered in installed seating, even after a number of years. Selected flame retardants need to be low-polarity (not migrate) and not emit acids under weathering (deactivate HALS light stabilisers). For the latter reason, TOSAF has developed a solution based on PIN FR which is not phosphoric acid based and which allows to preserve UV stability as well as FR properties in varied polypropylene applications..