Biobased Flame Retardants

The need for flame retardants

Timber and biobased building materials are more and more used in construction. As all construction materials, these materials should meet fire regulations. Nowadays, this is often achieved by adding chemical flame retardants.

The currently used flame retardants, however, are not biobased, which could hamper biodegradation as a final end-of-life strategy. Furthermore, some have large environmental impacts.

Biobased flame retardants

In this project we explore two potential biobased flame retardants, one based on biochar and one based on struvite, and test them in biobased polymer matrices. This will enable the development of fully biobased building materials, meeting fire regulations, in the future.