Synergistic effect of red phosphorus, novolac and melamine ternary combination on flame retardancy of poly(oxymethylene)

New flame retardant system for poly(oxymethylene) (POM) has been studied. The combination of red phosphorus with novolac and melamine was found to act as an effective flame retardant of POM. The base POM exhibited very low limiting oxygen index (LOI) value of 15.3, while the flame retarded POM gave remarkably high LOI value of 37.5 and UL94 V-1 ranking without dripping at 0.8 mm thickness. The results of cone calorimetry, thermogravimetry and FTIR analysis suggested that the flame retarding mechanism is the intumescent char formation in the condensed phase. Novolac having a phenolic hydroxyl group is miscible with POM, and in the flaming process, red phosphorus yields phosphine and its acidic product such as phosphoric acid due to hydrolysis and oxidation reactions. In addition, all of novolac, melamine and phosphine are able to readily react with formaldehyde generated from POM during burning to give the reinforced and cross-linked char network through the polyaddition and polycondensation reactions. Therefore, the red phosphorus/novolac/melamine ternary combination system could synergistically promote the high flame retardancy of POM without the flaming drips.