“Mica/silicate glass frit‐armored skeleton” in PDMS composite foam for improving fire‐proofing performance

Abstract

It remains challenging to give polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) foam high fire-proofing performance through scalable strategies and economical methods. Herein, a novel PDMS composite foam with good flame retardancy and simultaneously excellent thermal insulation performance and fire-proofing properties under prolonged flame attack was developed through constructing "mica/silicate glass frit (SGF)-armored skeleton" by one pot method. The prepared composite foams can resist above 1000 C flame without disintegration and still maintain excellent thermal insulation properties due to the formation of porous ceramic framework. The tensile strength and compressive strength at strain of 25% were also increased significantly by 265% and 221%, respectively. This strategy of constructing an inorganic filler-armored skeleton structure in PDMS composite foam opens up new prospects to fabricate fire-proofing PDMS composite foam with impressive high temperature resistance and good mechanical properties.