Stability Assessment of a Polymeric Brominated Flame Retardant in Polystyrene Foams under Application-Relevant Conditions

The flame retardant (FR) BLUEDGE polymeric flame retardant (PFR) has been in use since 2011 and was developed as a replacement FR for hexabromocyclododecane in polystyrene (PS)-based insulation foams. To better understand the degradation behavior of the PFR used within PS foams, we examined the degr...

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Veröffentlicht in:Environmental science & technology 2021-03, Vol.55 (5), p.3050-3058
Hauptverfasser: Beach, Mark W, Kearns, Kenneth L, Davis, John W, Stutzman, John R, Lee, Dean, Lai, Yuming, Monaenkova, Daria, Kram, Shari, Hu, Jing, Lukas, Christine
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:The flame retardant (FR) BLUEDGE polymeric flame retardant (PFR) has been in use since 2011 and was developed as a replacement FR for hexabromocyclododecane in polystyrene (PS)-based insulation foams. To better understand the degradation behavior of the PFR used within PS foams, we examined the degradation of PFR under application-relevant conditions. Thermo-oxidative and photolytic pathways represent the most relevant degradation pathways. Separately, both the thermal and oxidative degradations of PFR at ambient conditions were shown to be negligible based on kinetic models of thermogravimetric analysis data obtained at elevated temperatures; the models predict that it would take 100 years to degrade 1% of PFR at 50 °C and 1000 years at 20 °C. Photodegradation was shown to degrade PFR after accelerated ultraviolet (UV) aging/exposure. UV radiation did not significantly penetrate the foam insulation (
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.0c04325