Polyelectrolyte Complexes for Fire Protection of Materials

Abstract

Fire and flammability continue to plague society, causing tens of thousands of needless deaths and injuries per year, in addition to billions of dollars in property damage. Common materials such as wood exhibit dangerous flammability and are ubiquitous in home furnishing and construction. Additionally, flammability dramatically limits the applications of three-dimensionally (3D) printed parts, despite their great promise in a multitude of areas such as medicine and aerospace. Reducing the flammability and associated fire hazard of these materials is critical to the preservation of human life as flammable polymeric materials continue to proliferate society. Layer-by-layer assembled flame retardants have risen to prominence as of late as a method of providing environmentally-friendlier approaches to fire protection. Unfortunately, wood and additive manufacturing filaments present unique challenges to this technique that render it impractical. This dissertation describes these challenges, and presents strategies to mitigate them through the use of electrostatically assembled polyelectrolyte complexes. These polyelectrolyte assemblies act as environmentally benign and extremely effective flame retardant coatings or additives to wood or 3D printing filaments, respectively.