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Conference on „Plastics, Fire Safety, and Flame Retardants“ in Würzburg, Germany The 9th Conference on „Plastics, Fire Safety, and Flame Retardants“ took place on December 5th and 6th, 2007 in Würzburg, Germany, at the „Süddeutsches Kunststoff-Zentrum“ SKZ and had around 60 participants. The conference language was German. The first part Fire Regulations and Tests started with electrical engineering & electronics (E&E) including approval, testing and new external fire source requirements for consumer and office electronics. Two papers followed on the fire behaviour of construction products and particularly of pipe insulating systems in the European Union and Germany. The progress achieved in European standardisation for the fire protection of rail vehicles as well as for the introduction of toxicity requirements in Germany was discussed. New fuselage structures (composites instead of aluminium) for aircraft and fire-testing in the new American burn-through test are trend-setting developments discussed in the last presentation. The topic Flame Retardants, Markets and Applications first dealt with comments on the K2007 plastics fair, the growing influence of the Chinese in the flame retardants market, and the rather scarce innovations of flame retardants. Further presentations in this field dealt with developments for halogen free systems in polyamides and linear polyesters using phosphinates, particularly for appliances, flame retarded thermosets, improved extrusion with nano particles, and the cone calorimeter as a tool for developing flame retarded polymers. The paper on “REACH registration of flame retardants - burden or chance?” showed the timeline and the ways to register these chemicals. Aspects of the environmental impact of flame retardants as seen by the German environmental protection agency UBA and ongoing research activities completed the topic Environment. The paper “how well does my hi-fi unit burn?“ presented a study of the European Flame Retardant Association EFRA and showed how easily electrical devices in our home may catch fire when exposed to small external ignition sources. A burning micro
stereo system, 5 minutes after ignition with a small flame (the
size of a tea light candle).
A short video
on car fires in the USA showed that the fire safety regulations
of 1972 do no more fulfil the requirements for modern cars and that
higher fire safety levels for the materials are imperative.
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