TY - JOUR A1 - Sanchez Olivares, G. A1 - Rockel, Daniel A1 - Calderas, F. A1 - Schartel, Bernhard T1 - Utilizing leather fibers from industrial wastes as bio-filler to improve flame retardancy in polypropylene JF - Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry N2 - Combining buffing leather fibers from industrial waste streams with ammonium polyphosphate and bentonite clay is proposed as a flame-retardant additive for polypropylene. The paper addresses how they can be processed into attractive composites with the desired mechanical properties. Buffing leather fibers function as a multifunctional bio-filler and as a synergist for the flame retardant, resulting in fire retardancy successful enough to increase the oxygen index (LOI) by up to 7 vol.-% and to achieve a V0 UL 94 classification. Impressively reduced heat release rates are obtained in the cone calorimeter at 50 kW/m2 irradiation; for instance, the maximum average rate heat evolved (MARHE) drops from 765 to below 200 kW mô€€€ 2. The synergistic effects are quantified and shown to be very strong for LOI and MARHE. This work opens the door to use waste buffing leather fibers as a promising multifunctional and synergistic bio-filler. KW - Polypropylene KW - Flame retardancy KW - Industrial waste KW - Leather fibers KW - Bio-filler PY - 2024 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiec.2023.11.008 SN - 1226-086X SN - 1876-794X VL - 132 SP - 148 EP - 160 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-59556 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -