The development of synergistic heat stabilizers for PVC from zinc borate-zinc phosphate

Abstract

Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), releases smoke and toxic gases (hydrogen chloride, HCl) during heating at temperatures above 140 C with the result of dehydrochlorination reaction. Obtaining flame retardant and smoke suppressed PVC compositions are getting more and more important. PVC is widely applied as a covering insulation for electrical and communication cables and in domestic uses such as window frames, doors, profiles, sidings and gutters because of its high level of combustion resistance.For this reason, many additives are studied to achieve better compositions than the present ones.In this study, the synergistic effects of zinc borate (ZB) . zinc phosphate (ZP) on thermal stability of plastigels obtained from PVC and dioctylphthalate (DOP) plastisols were investigated using spectroscopic and thermal techniques. Plastigels having a total of 2.5 parts (w/w) of zinc borate and zinc phosphate, 80 parts (w/w) of DOP and 100 parts (w/w) of PVC were gelled at 140 C for 15 minutes in a vacuum oven. The plastigel films having different compositions of ZB and ZP were investigated after heating at 140°C and 160 C from 15 minutes to 90 minutes by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX). The kinetic studies were made by PVC Thermomat 763 instrument. HCl gas released due to heating of the plastigel films at both 140 C and 160°C in PVC Thermomat instrument under nitrogen gas increases the conductivity of deionized water in measuring vessels of this instrument. By measuring the conductivity change in water caused by the absorption of HCl released, the thermal degradation of PVC plastigel films were studied by means of reaction rates, rate constants and activation energies. Compositions having only ZB or ZP have retarded dehydrochlorination of PVC compared with the control sample. However, the compositions with both ZB and ZP have a superior synergistic effect on char formation of PVC. Since induction times of the compositions having both ZB and ZP were higher than that of the control samples having only ZB or only ZP, the synergistic effect was observed.The compositions greatly promote the char formation of PVC. The thermal stability of plastigels was also studied by their yellowness index (YI). The elemental compositions of these films were investigated in atomic scale using EDX and SEM and their compositions were calculated both for particles and matrix.