Marco Wismer

A New Approach to the Preparation of Rigid Urethane Foams Having Reduced Flame Spread and Smoke Levels

ever, usually evolve substantial quantities of smoke during a fire. This can reduce the visibility in a burning structure and prevent people from escaping. Unfortunately, it is often the fire retardant compounds that are used to reduce flame spread which contribute the most to the amounts of smoke evolved. Also, some of the fire retardant compounds which contain halogen atoms produce toxic gases such as hydrogen halides during combustion. This paper describes a new approach to the reduction of flame spread and smoke development of rigid polyurethane foam. A modification of the small scale Monsanto tunnel test (2) and its relation to the large scale ASTM E-84 (3) tunnel test is also presented.