Preparation of Ar-P-N-structured flame retardant via Kabachnik-Fields reaction for fire safety and mechanical reinforcement of polyurethane

Fire safety of polyurethanes (PUs) has limited their further practical applications. To address this problem, we designed novel phosphorus-based flame retardants (P-FR) by incorporating aryl (Ar) groups via Kabachnik-Fields reaction, realizing pi-pi interaction-reinforced Ar2 and Ar5. Total heat release and peak heat release rate of PU/Ar5, whose flame-retardancy-index of 5.02 due to reduced combustion time, decreased 23.24 and 9.23 %, respectively, compared with neat PU. Moreover, UL94 rating for PU/Ar5 was improved from V-2 to V-0. These results demonstrate that Ar5 effectively generate a barrier effect that blocks oxygen, fuel, and heat. Sluggish mobility and phase transition are responsible for such enhancement due to a delay effect with the existence of pi-pi interactions and steric hindrance. Encouragingly, tensile strength and toughness of PU/Ar5 were greatly improved by 1345.8 and 670.3 %, respectively, compared with neat PU. We believe that this study could provide a promising method for introducing specific function to flame retardants to enhance fire safety and mechanical properties of composites.