Application for Dicumene
Dicumene
Dicumene is used for the (co)polymerization of styrene and as a synergist in fire-retardant polystyrene formulations. Commonly polystyrene and expanded polystyrene (EPS) are made fire-retardant by the use of halogen-containing additives such as hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD).
Dicumene can be used as synergistic coagent to reduce the amount of HBCD required. For this application Dicumene is well suited because it has sufficient thermal stability at the temperatures used in suspension polymerization. If Dicumene will be added to styrene monomer
immediately before the onset of polymerization it will not have an impact to the polymerization process.
Dicumene can also be used for the mass polymerization of styrene.
Dicumene is a flame retardant synergist, designed for the use in polyolefins as well as in polystyrenes especially in EPS and HIPS, presenting technical performances such as high thermal stability, improvement of flow properties and excellent fire proofing.
It was widely used in ABS/SAN, Engineering Plastics, GPPS, HIPS, Polystyrene (All Purpose), Polystyrene (Expandable), PS, PS (High Impact), Styrenic (co) Polymers.
Especially, dicumene could be used in EPS with adding level 0.5-1%, that could decrease the dosage of brominate flame retardant additive evidently, such as HBCD. In HIPS direction, the adding leve of dicumene was only 30% of antimony trioxide.
As an environmental friendly alternative for antimony trioxide, Dicumene is able to significantly reduce its use in polypropylene, polyethylene and polystyrene. For achieving UL 94 V2 standard, antimony trioxide can be completely substituted by Dicumene in most of the cases. At the same
time the use of brominated flame retardants can be reduced as well.
Dicumene was also used in PP and PE masterbatches, act as plastic initiator, grafting agent.
Dicumene is showing a good thermal stability – compared to dicumol peroxide – an improving flowability of the material. In addition the low dosing of 0.2% - 2% offers economic advantages .
• Dicumene is an environment friendly substitute for Sb2O3 which contains heavy metal.
• High temperature Chain Initiator for high molecular wt. polyester
• Polymerization initiator for bulk polymerisation of styrene and alkenyl
silane and alkene.
