Flame Retardant ABS Resin Composition
Halogenated unsymmetrical higher alkyl bisphenoxy alkanes having utility as non-blooming flame retardant agents.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Flame Retardant ABS Resin Composition, E. J. Termine, N. A. Favstritsky, and D. M. Borden, United States Patent No. 4,891,449.
Available at: http://terminegroup.com/archives/243
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a plastic additive composition and more particularly to a plastic additive composition comprising halogenated unsymmetrical higher alkyl bisphenoxy alkanes.
2. Description of the Art
Traditionally, plastic additive compositions are an important class of industrial materials. Plastic additives are used to enhance or modify the properties of commercially available polymers. The use of plastic additives allows a relatively small number of commercially available polymers to be tailored to a myriad of uses. Those skilled in the art will know that the selection of an application specific plastic additive is unpredictable at best. Therefore, additive manufacturers must take a sophisticated approach and offer a range of products to achieve the desired result.
Plastic additive compositions can be used as plasticizers, flame retardants, flow modifiers, or impact modifiers in resin systems, heat transfer fluids, or hydraulic fluids.
One important use of plastic additive compositions is as flame retardants in resin systems. Most flame retardants, although efficient in their function of retarding the rate of combustion in a resin system, have a tendency to affect adversely one or more key properties of he resin. For example, many flame retardant additives tend to reduce the impact strength of the resin; to migrate from the resin composition, resulting in a phenomena known as “bloom”; to volatilize from the resin composition; to plasticize the resin composition adversely, and therefore lowering the heat deflection temperature, etc.
A number of flame retardants are used specifically in acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (“ABS”) resins, for example. The following compositions have all been used in ABS systems: bis(tribromophenoxy)-ethane, octabromodiphenyl ether, decabromodiphenyl ether, tetrabromobisphenol-A and its carbonate oligomers, and bis(pentabromophenoxy)-ethane. Among the prior art specifically dealing with flame retarding ABS resins are U.S. Pat. No. 4,016,134 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,218 and references cited therein. These flame retardant agents for ABS plastics have not been entirely satisfactory because of problems of “bloom”, light instability, discolortion, and adverse effects on properties such as impact strength and flowability.
Anderson, et al., in a series of patents disclose plastic compositions containing flame retardants. The flame retardants are bisphenoxy compounds having the general formula ##STR1## wherein Z is bromine, m and m’ are integers having a value of 1-4, i and i’ are integers having a value of 1 or 2, alkylene is a straight or branched claim alkylene group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms, and A is cyano, nitro, lower alkoxy, lower alkyl (defined as CH.sub.3, C.sub.2 H.sub.5, C.sub.3 H.sub.7, or C.sub.4 H.sub.9), flourine, dialkylamino, phenyl, halo-phenyl, benzyl or halo-benzyl. (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,810,866; 3,833,538; 3,883,479; 3,883,539; 3,862,085; 3,869,425; and 3,876,711). The plastic compositions containing the symmetrical bisphenoxy compounds include a plastic material in the composition such as polystyrene, ABS, polyester, poly(phenylene oxide), polyurethane and other polyolefins. These patents fail to suggest a plastic additive composition comprising halogenated unsymmetrical or higher alkyl substituted bisphenoxy compounds.
Accordingly, a primary object of this invention is to provide new unsymmetrical higher alkyl halogenated bisphenoxy alkanes.
Another object of the invention is to provide halogenated unsymmetrical higher alkyl bisphenoxy alkanes having utility as flame retardant agents.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide halogenated unsymmetrical higher alkyl bisphenoxy alkanes having utility as non-blooming flame retardants.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The foregoing and other objects, advantages and features of this invention may be achieved with new compositions of matter comprising halogenated unsymmetrical higher alkyl bisphenoxy alkanes. Preferably the bisphenoxy alkanes used in accordance with this invention is a brominated unsymmetrical higher alkyl bisphenoxy ethane. The preferred brominated bisphenoxy ethane contains between 40 and 70 percent by weight of bromine.
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