Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Elemental ultramicroanalysis and a type of pyrolysis chromatography have been used as fingerprinting techniques to confirm that the decomposition behaviours of three commercially available polyether foams (including a flame retarded sample) are similar to that of a reference polyether foam recently studied in detail. The report gives the elemental compositions of each foam, shows the comparative data for the weight-and nitrogen - losses as a function of temperature for each foam and records the chromatograms of the decomposition products of each material at 600 and 900C. In this way it has been shown that the decomposition proceeds in each case via the initial release of yellow smoke which decomposes at high temperatures to give the expected nitrogen-containing products of low molecular weight. This information is relevant for studies of large scale fire situations involving these commercially available foams.