We found in our previous study that ethylenediamine- or ethanolamine-modified ammonium polyphosphates could be used alone as an intumescent flame retardant for polypropylene (PP), but their flame-retardant efficiency was not very high. In this present work, a novel highly-efficient mono-component polymeric intumescent flame retardant, piperazine-modified ammonium polyphosphate (PA-APP) was prepared. The oxygen index value of PP containing 22 wt % of PA-APP reached 31.2%, which increased by 58.4% compared with that of PP with equal amount of APP, and the vertical burning test (UL-94) could pass V-0 rating. Cone calorimeter (CC) results indicated that PP/PA-APP composite exhibited superior performance compared with PP/APP composite. For PP containing 25 wt % of PA-APP, fire growth rate (FGR) and smoke production rate (SPR) peak were reduced by 86.4% and 78.2%, respectively, compared with PP blended with 25 wt % APP. The relevant flame-retardant mechanism of PA-APP was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy etc. The P-N-C structure with the alicyclic amine was formed during the thermal decomposition of piperazine salt (-NH2(+)-O-P-), and the rich P-N-C structure facilitated the formation of stable char layer at the later stage, consequently improving the flame-retardant efficiency of APP.

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A novel nitrogen−phosphorus flame retardant, 2-carboxyethyl(phenyl)phosphinic acid melamine salt (CMA), was synthesized by the reaction of 2-carboxyethyl(phenyl)phosphinic acid with melamine in aqueous solution, and it was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), elemental analysis, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Halogen-free flame-retardant flexible polyurethane foams (FPUF) were prepared successfully by using CMA as a flame retardant. The effects of CMA content on the mechanical, thermal, and flame-retardant properties of FPUF were investigated by tensile test, TGA, limiting oxygen index (LOI), flame propagation test (Cal T.B. 117A-Part I standard), and cone calorimeter. The foam morphology of FPUF was studied via scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that CMA endowed FPUF with good flame-retardant properties. FPUF containing only 12 wt % CMA can pass Cal T.B. 117A-Part I standard, and its LOI value was increased from 18.2 (for FPUF without CMA) to 24.1. Particularly, the addition of CMA almost did not decrease the mechanical properties of the resulting flame-retardant FPUFs.