부산대학교 도서관

Polycarbonate (PC) is one of the widely utilized engineering plastics owing to its excellent transparency and mechanical property. In the end use application, PC is subjected to the injection molding operation at temperature above 300 °C, in which a degradation reaction is likely to occur. Therefore, the understanding of its thermal behavior is of crucial importance. On the other hand, it is known that the resistance of PC to burning is relatively high. The inherent fire resistance can be further enhanced by adding a flame-retardant. Recently the phosphorus compounds such as phosphate, elemental red phosphorous and polyphosphoric acid are used instead of halogenated compounds. It is believed that phosphorus show the flame-retardant activity in either the gas phase and/or the condensed phase. Judging from the reactivity of PC and phosphorus compounds, it is expected to have no interaction between them. However, it was found that the molecular weight of PC drastically decreased by the treatment with triphenylphosphine oxide at 240°C. In this presentation, we will report the preliminary results of the thermal degradation of PC in the presence of triphenylphosphine oxide and triphenylphosphate.