Mechanical, thermal and fire performance of an inorganic-organic insulation material composed of hollow glass microspheres and phenolic resin

Organic foamy materials possess good thermal insulation properties and inorganic materials are non-combustible. Hence, it is possible to develop a kind of organic-inorganic lightweight thermal insulation materials with excellent fire safety.Hollow glass microsphere (HGM), as one kind of lightweight noncombustible inorganic material, was chosen as the filling material. Phenolic resin (PR), as the flame retardant polymeric material, was used as binding material. A series of HGM/PR composites with various PR/HGM mass ratio were prepared. Properties, such as apparent density, microstructure, mechanical strength, thermal conductivity, burning behavior and flame retardancy of the specimens were determined, respectively.The results show that the surface of HGM particles is coated by a layer of cured PR and the HGM powder is glued together firmly from the scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. With the increase of PR/HGM mass ratio, both of apparent density and mechanical strength of HGM/PR composites increase, but thermal conductivity and limiting oxygen index (LOI) values decrease, all of the specimens still possess high LOI value (>50%). What's more, no flaming combustion (merely partial carbonization) and hardly any smoke can be observed during the burning process, which indicates the HGM/PR composites possess excellent flame retardant property and fire safety.