Fire-Retardant Particleboard from Treated Flakes

Since new building codes have need of noncombustible materials, flakeboard must also be able to meet these standards. Of the two fire-retardant treatments, pressure impregnation and pretreatment, pretreatment with a resin spray or as a flake treatment prior to resin application has been shown to be superior. Urea and phenolic resins were used with the fire-retardants minalith, pyresote, zinc borate, and an organic phosphate formed from 0-phosphoric acid and dicyandiamide (D:P). To test the shear strength of the resins with the fire-retardants, plywood was used first. Then tests were run on control and treated flakeboard. The fire tube test was used to measure weight loss and temperature with time. D:P was shown to have the least percent weight loss and the least temperature increase when tested by the fire tube test. The concentrations for all treatments were the same using solution soaks to gain retention of the retardants. Control of pH and surface contamination seemed to be the determining factors of a good resin bond. D:P also was shown to have the highest internal bonds at equivalent concentrations of solution.

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