The 19th edition of FRPM (Fire Retardant Polymeric Materials Conference) www.frpm-23.org was  hosted by Empa, Switzerland, 26-29 June 2023. This is one of the world’s biggest flame retardant conference, with nearly 250 participants, 69 oral presentations and 70 posters.

EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability - Martijn Beekman, European Commission, DG GROW - Despite forty years of chemicals regulations in Europe, today sees high levels of citizen concern about chemical impacts on health and on the environment and scientific evidence of widespread impacts of chemicals.

Adrian Beard, pinfa and Clariant - The EU’s “Chemical Strategy for Sustainability” (April 2022, pinfa Newsletter n°138) will bring major changes to chemicals regulation in Europe and these are today being initiated, including the recast of the EU chemicals regulation REACH, the concepts of “Safe and Sustainable by Design” (SSbD) chemicals and of “Essential Uses” of certain chemicals, the announced Restriction of all PFAS (as a class of chemicals).

Chris Slootweg, University of Amsterdam - The phosphorus cycle today exceeds planetary boundaries and leads to widespread water quality deterioration (eutrophication).

Gaëlle Fontaine, Centrale Lille France - Tests assessed smoke and fire behaviour of cross-laminated timber under different oxygen concentrations.

Lei Chen, SABIC - A key challenge to Electric Vehicle (EV) battery pack design is the battery pack structure which includes battery cooling and cell separation to prevent propagation of the whole battery pack in case of failure of one cell.

Richard Clay and Stephen Blair, Polymer Compounders Limited (PCL) - Based in the UK, PCL supply several thousand tonnes per year of performance thermoplastic polymer compounds to a broad range of customers in automotive, healthcare, industrial, white goods and electrical...

Claudia Vogt and Edwin Kroke (Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, TUBAF), with Tobias Wagener and Alexander König (BASF), Carl-Christoph Höhne and Jennifer Limburger (Fraunhofer ICT).

Several presentations and posters at FRPM addressed recycling.

These pinfa Awards are the first time such prizes have been offered for presentations at FRPM. A total of 14 candidate oral presentations by young researchers were graded for scientific content, presentation quality and oral delivery by experts from fire research and industry.

Iben Hansen-Bruhn, Aarhus University, Denmark, and University of Central Lancashire, UK - Two different ammonium phosphate based PIN flame retardants were applied to 12 mm pine plywood.

Poster and Travel Awards were offered for the first time at FRPM, by the Ingeborg Foundation Germany, for posters from young researchers (51 candidate posters).

Jiuke Chen, Empa - Extruded PET (polyethylene terephthalate) fibres neat or with two different phosphorus PIN FRs (DOPO derivate DOPO-PEPA, phosphonate compound) were tested for mechanical recycling, with twin-screw extrusion – quench – spin-melt – reprocessing cycles (without ageing, total 3 extrusions).

Hannah Flerlage and Steven Beijer, University of Amsterdam - SSbD (Safe and Sustainable by Design) is applied to redesign P FR for reduced environmental hazard using a computer-based approach, starting from the existing PIN phosphorus flame retardant Tri-iso-butyl phosphate (TiBP).

Nathalie Vest, Texas A&M University - Nylon-cotton fabric (NYCO) was multi-layer coated with phytic acid, chitosan and tannic acid, achieving self-extinguishing with 17% weight added. NYCO is widely used in military uniforms and workwear, but has high flammability because of interaction between the two fibres in fire.

Marie-Odile Augé, Centrale Lille France - A self-polymerising commercial additive was compounded into poly lactic acid (PLA) using a twin-screw extruder operating at 185°C.

Alessandro Beduini, University of Milan. Polyamidoamines, synthesised from a bisacrylamide (MBA) and natural amino acids, soaked into cotton, significantly improved fire performance.

Daniela Goedderz, Fraunhofer IBF. Action of the modes of action of PIN flame retardants, gas transport, flame topology and gaseous pyrolysis products, by a combination of optical diagnostics (planar laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy of OH-radicals) and pyrolysis fragment analysis (TGA-FTIR).

pinfa calls for phosphorus to be identified as crucial for fire safety for all of the identified EU “Strategic” industries: batteries, renewable energy, electrical systems, circuit boards, electronic, power and data cables, aerospace.

Industry expert input is invited for new Elsevier book on “Flame Retardant Selection for Polymers”, covering FR selection, formulation and regulations.

Open to 4th August 2023 HERE. Further information see pinfa Newsletter n°149

Document for UN Plastics Treaty on plastics identifies certain specific flame retardants as one of ten chemical concerns.

Ban of all halogenated FRs in E&E casings and of halogenated FRs and five phosphorus FRs in some polyurethane foams.

DIGITALEUROPE says FRs “provide essential fire protection” and prefer RoHS to REACH for regulation of FRs in electronics.