Burning of thermally thin polyethylene mixtures

The burning of polyethylene in the mixture with aluminium hydroxide, aluminium oxide, cellulose and Irganox 1010 has been examined by cone calorimeter under non-standard sizes of the sample. The time to ignition of pure polyethylene decreases with decreasing initial amount of polyethylene powder. The subtraction of the mass of water released from the total mass lost for polyethylene with aluminium hydroxide give the same values of effective heats of combustion as for pure polyethylene up to the load about 50 mass% of aluminium hydroxide. The mean heats of combustion determined from the cone calorimeter software are higher than those determined from the total oxygen consumed and mass lost multiplied by the factor 13.1. The additivity rule was found for effective heat of combustion and total smoke released for polyethylene with cellulose. The free radical scavenger Irganox 1010 does not show a significant effect on the flammability of polyethylene except for the increase of the total smoke released. The equation describing the heat release rate evolution in time has been proposed showing a good fit to the experimental runs.