Advancing building fire safety through heat resistant and flame retardant hybrid silicone sealant

Rapid urbanization and population growth have led to a significant transformation in the urban landscape, characterized by the proliferation of high-rise buildings. However, this urban development has brought about new challenges, particularly in terms of fire safety. The escalating risk of disasters, especially fires, underscores the critical importance of implementing effective fire safety measures across all building types, necessitating legislative reforms. Despite their crucial role in ensuring structural integrity, sealants have often been overlooked in building safety standards, resulting in a lack of comprehensive regulations. The research addresses these challenges by focusing on the development of fire-resistant silicone sealants designed to enhance the fire resistance of building materials. These sealants were formulated independently, incorporating three fire retardants and four heat-resistant agents. While metal oxide flame retardants generally exhibited excellent performance, excessive mixing led to surface deformation and reduced workability. Optimal combinations of flame retardants and heat-resistant agents were identified, with the FR2 specimen demonstrating promising fire resistance performance. Full-scale fire performance tests conducted on FR2 revealed a maximum temperature difference of 40.6 °C between heated and unheated surfaces over a 2-h period, indicating high thermal insulation performance. These findings validate the efficacy of the proposed method and offer significant enhancements to building safety, thereby mitigating fire damage in urban environments. •Proposal of the fire-resistance hybrid silicon sealant for building safety.•To boost fire resistance, flame retardants and heat resistant agents were used.•Iron oxide reduces sealant tensile strength at high temps by < 10 %.•Fire resistance performance was proven through a full-scale fire test.•FR2 exhibited heat shielding/flame blocking and expansion at high temperatures.