Thermal degradation and fire performance of plywood treated with expanded vermiculite

Summary The new flame-retardant plywood was manufactured by adding expanded vermiculite (EVMT) in the adhesive and by surface treatment as a flame-retardant coating. The study discussed the effect of EVMT to the limited oxygen index values of samples. The thermal degradation process of plywood samples has been investigated by thermal analysis. The result showed that EVMT increased all the limited oxygen index values of the treated samples and decreased the thermal activation energy at a high degree of degradation. Scanning electron microscope (FEI, Holland, The Netherlands) images showed that EVMT could form a protective coating, which improved the flame retardancy of plywood. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.