TY  - EJOU
AU  - Kiratitanavit, Weeradech 
AU  - Ravichandran, Sethumadhavan 
AU  - Xia, Zhiyu 
AU  - Kumar, Jayant 
AU  - Nagarajan, Ramaswamy 

TI  - Thermally Stable Polymers of Cardanol as Char-Forming  Additives for Polypropylene
T2  - Journal of Renewable Materials

PY  - 2013
VL  - 1
IS  - 4
SN  - 2164-6341

AB  - Globally, certain types of halogenated fl ame retardant additives (FR) are becoming increasingly regulated 
or banned from being used in polymers. There is an immediate need for alternative non-toxic thermally 
stable polymers and char-forming additives. Development of non-halogenated FR for the commonly used 
and highly fl ammable thermoplastics, namely polyolefi ns, is particularly important and challenging. This 
research explores the possibility of utilizing char-forming compounds based on polymer of cardanol as an 
additive that can lower the heat release capacity (HRC) when blended with polypropylene (PP). Polycardanol 
is thermally stable and exhibits moderate HRC upon thermal decomposition and forms a signifi cant amount 
of char. The use of a polymeric form of phenol eliminates any processing-induced decomposition problems. 
Here we report the synthesis and characterization of polycardanol as well as the thermal and rheological 
characterization of blends of polycardanol with PP. Pyrolysis Combustion Flow Calorimetry studies indicate 
that blending of polycardanol with PP can effectively lower the HRC by over 20%.
KW  - Polycardanol
KW  -  polypropylene
KW  -  polyphenols
KW  -  fl ame retardant additives
KW  -  thermal stability

DO  - 10.7569/JRM.2013.634126