In recent years, halogen-free flame retardants have become increasingly popular. For a long time and even now, the misconception that halogen flame retardants are harmful and harmful, while halogen-free flame retardants are environmentally friendly and represent the future development prospects of flame retardants, is deeply appreciated. The view that halogen-free flame retardants=environmental protection is flourishing.
Exploring its origins, firstly, after some flame retardants have negative effects, people take them out of context and expand these negative effects to all halogenated flame retardants; Secondly, distorting and generalizing certain scientific research achievements; Thirdly, because the difficulty level of testing the structure of chemical substances exceeds that of testing the original elements, everyone only evaluates whether the chemical substance contains halogens for better convenience and speed; Fourthly, it has been used by some profit oriented individuals, companies, and research laboratories to spread the message that halogens are harmful and halogen-free means environmental protection, forcing downstream manufacturers to abandon the use of all halogenated flame retardants and carry out Hanhai marketing and promotion. In fact, according to the internationally recognized regulations for chemical classification and labeling, among the more than 70 commercially available brominated flame retardants, only two commodities, TBBA (tetrabromobisphenol A) and HBCD (hexabromocyclododecane), have been identified as hazardous. And some halogen-free flame retardants, such as the vast majority of phosphate esters and a portion of polyphosphates and hypophosphates, contain natural environmental harmful substance labels themselves. Therefore, there is no scientific evidence to distinguish whether it is environmentally friendly based on the presence of certain types of chemical molecules!
There are no policies or regulations that explicitly limit, exempt, or apply halogen-free to all major halogen families. The inevitable result is that halogen-free can only cause numerous harms to social development: firstly, it leads to confusion in definitions and deceives the general public; The second is to destroy the chemical product evaluation and system management based on scientific research, and to deceive supervisory agencies into adopting one-sided policies; The third is to force manufacturers to use immature halogen-free alternatives to replace goods, or reduce flame retardancy levels, thereby increasing the risk of fire accidents and endangering life and financial safety; The fourth is to increase excess testing and inspection, raise production costs for manufacturers, and ultimately increase customer pressure; The fifth is to break away from the original layout of the modifier supply and sales market, promote a reduction in the total number of modifier distributors, centralize supply, and expand the risk of monopoly; The sixth is to widen the gap between Chinese electronic equipment manufacturing enterprises and international first-class manufacturers, weakening the competitiveness of domestic brands.
The field of flame retardants should be diverse, and different flame retardants have different applicable industries. They should be selected by the sales market within the framework of complying with regulatory policies and regulations, rather than advocating for a one-sided focus on halogen-free solutions even if certain challenges arise.
In fact, pursuing perfect environmental protection is a necessary condition for flame retardants to obtain the concept of sustainable development, but we cannot be overly paranoid and must first understand the essence of environmental protection. Environmental protection means environmental friendliness. As a chemical product, flame retardants must meet three standards to achieve environmental friendliness. Firstly, from the perspective of its chemical structure itself, it should achieve two characteristics: non PBT in the natural environment and non-toxic and harmless to the body. Overall, non PBT in the natural environment refers to chemicals that have minimal harm in terms of sustained environmental pollution, bioaccumulation, migration, and green ecological toxic side effects, and are non-toxic to the body and pose no harm to health. Secondly, the harm to the natural environment is minimal throughout the entire lifecycle, manifested in low carbon emissions, minimal release from the natural environment, and low overall energy consumption throughout the entire process of commodity production, manufacturing, transportation, and application to waste. Moreover, appropriate solutions should be taken for waste throughout the entire process, preferably through recycling and reuse. Thirdly, the product has necessary physical characteristics, can achieve performance indicators, utilize its strengths, and meet the control requirements of relevant policies and regulations. When the flame retardant meets these three standards, it meets the green chemistry standards and can seek future environmentally friendly development prospects.
As we all know, in terms of products themselves, chemicals can only cause corresponding harm when they enter living organisms. Polymer chemical substances, due to their large molecular structure and volume, are difficult to penetrate the cytoplasm of living organisms and participate in blood circulation and basal metabolism, so they are not likely to cause bioaccumulation. Therefore, biomacromolecule aggregation flame retardants are one of the directions of green development concept. From traditional bromine based flame retardants and phosphorus based flame retardants in polymer materials, to modern organic silicon based flame retardants and convergent nitrogen phosphorus flame retardants, all are explorations and pursuit of perfection in the environmentally friendly aspects of flame retardants.
