Thermoanalytic Measurements of Fire-Retardant ABS Resins

Abstract

Previously we have shown that it is possible to detect the type and amount of each component within a polyblend by either measuring the component’s glass temperature, Tg, and the magnitude of the increase in specific heat, ΔCp, occurring at the transition or determining the component’s melting point, Tm_o, and the corresponding heat of fusion, ΔHf.1,2 In our laboratory this technique has become a reliable and rapid quantitative tool for the analysis of impact modified polyblends.2,3,4 However, these previous measurements have relied upon the immiscibility of the individual polyblend components to produce separate phases which can be identified by calorimetry. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the quantitative thermal analysis of several commercial ABS resins which have organic fire-retardant (FR) additives which are soluble in either the glass and rubber phases or in only the matrix of the resin.