POLYACRYLONITRILE-MXENE-BASED NANOCOMPOSITE AS FLAME RETARDANT

Abstract

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is one of the most common used polymers having chemical formula (C3H3N)n. PAN is a thermoplastic, synthetic and semi crystalline organic polymer used in the preparation of various useful products such as fibers that are used in reverse osmosis and textile industries, ultrafiltration membranes and oxidized PAN fibers. Despite large applications of PAN, its use in polymer industries is limited mainly because of high flammability which is of major concern. To address this, MXene is used as an additive to improve the flame retardancy of PAN. MXene is prepared by selectively removing ‘Al’ from the MAX phase powder and solvent blending followed by solution casting method is used to prepare the MXene/PAN nanocomposite films. Thermal stability and flammability of composites are investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), UL-94 vertical burning test and limiting oxygen index (LOI) test. It is observed that with addition of MXene flame retardancy of polyacrylonitrile is improved significantly with LOI of 26 and UL-94 rating of V-1. These improvements are observed due to the ability of MXene to provide good dispersion in PAN as well as stronger and larger protective char barrier layers.