Study on the thermal stability and flame retardancy of nanocarbon black based layer-by-layer self-assembled coating modified flexible polyurethane foam

Flexible polyurethane foam (FPUF) coated with nanocarbon black (nano-CB), alginate and polyethylenemine was prepared by layer-by-layer self-assembly method. The successful synthesis of the target coated PU foams was demonstrated by comparing untreated and treated FPUFs. TGA results showed that the nano-CB could retard the thermal decomposition of treated FPUFs and improve the char residues of FPUF composites at high temperature. In the cone test, the peak heat release rate, peak smoke production rate and total smoke production of the PU-3 (with 17.6 wt% weight-gain) were shown to be reduced by 47.7%, 41.8% and 81.5% as compared with untreated FPUF, respectively.