Construction of Nanomaterials Based on Molybdenum Disulfide Decorated onto a Metal–Organic Framework (UiO-66) to Improve the Fire Retardancy of Epoxy

With the aim of achieving highly efficient fire-safe epoxy resin (EP) and conducting a thorough analysis of the catalytic carbonization performance, a dual transition metal species 3D nanostructured UiO66-MoS2 nanohybrid was prepared with a zirconium metal–organic framework (MOF, UiO-66) as an inner structure and nano-molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) as an outer structure. The results showed that with the addition of 1% of UiO66-MoS2 nanohybrid, EP nanocomposites exhibited 44 and 50% decrease in the peak heat release rate and carbon monoxide production, respectively. High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy characterizations for the char following extraction, via the Soxhlet extraction method, verified that the presence of MOF increased the amount of residue and catalytically promoted the carbonization process via lowering the carbonization temperature, in particular, the MOF catalytically cyclized alkene substrates containing phenol groups to form lactone. Therefore, the improvement in the fire safety of EP is attributed to the enhancement of the quality of the char and its barrier effect. In perspective, this work paves the way and provides insights into studying the catalytic carbonization performance in the fire retardancy field.