Effects of Fire Retardants on Jute Fiber Reinforced Polyvinyl Chloride/Polypropylene Hybrid Composites

Jute fiber (50 %) reinforced PVC+PP hybrid composites were prepared by injection molding and heat pressing. Mechanical properties (tensile strength, TS; bending strength, BS; tensile modulus, TM; bending modulus, BM; and impact strength, IS) and burning speed of composites were studied. Hybrid composite of 55 % PP and 45 % PVC showed the best results and was selected as desired specimen. TS, BS, TM, BM, IS and burning speed of the selected desired specimen (SDS) was found as 63.6 MPa, 68.7 MPa, 1.38 GPa, 1.76 GPa, 24 KJ/m2 and 3.2 cm/min respectively. Finer particle size Aluminium trihydrate (ATH) and Zinc borate with Antimony Trioxide (ZB-AT) was used as fire retardants. TS and IS decreased; on the contrary, TM and BM increased with increasing both AT and ZB-AT. But BS decreased with increasing ATH and increased with increasing ZB-AT. Burning speed of SDS reduced to 2.8 cm/min and 2.2 cm/min after using 10 % ATH and 10 % ZB-AT (ZB, 7.5%; AT, 2.5%) respectively.