Flame Retardant Classifications According DIN EN ISO 1043-4 - What do they mean?

Hello and welcome to a new blog post. In a previous post we discussed flame retardants in a general way, followed by examples of flame retardants for Polyamides. In this post we uncover the flame retardant classification according to DIN EN ISO 1043-4.

Example of a part marking code with flame retardant

Let us begin with an example and let us decode it step-by step: PE-LD FR (30+40) 

PE-LD: Polyethylene with low density

FR (30+40): contains flame retardant form classification 30 and 40

What does the classification FR(30+40) mean?

To find out we need to have a look into the DIN EN ISO 1043-4 where we can find the different flame retardant types. 

Figure 1 shows an extract of the most common flame retardant classes. We can distinguish between halogen compounds, nitrogen compounds, halogen-free organophosphorus compounds,inorganic phosphorus compounds, metal oxides, Boron and zinc compounds, silicon compounds, and graphite.

Figure 1: extract of the most common flame retardant classes according DIN EN ISO 1043-4

Cycling back to our example, we can state that this PE-LD uses nitrogen compounds (3) and halogen-free organophosphorus compounds (40) as flame retardants.

In case you want to overmould copper (busbar application) with a Polyamide which needs a certain flame retardant level, attention should be given to use flame retardants from classification 40. Such flame retardants do not create electrical corrosion on your part which in turn can cause a short circuit. 

In market segments such as automotive, more and more flame retardant material in combination with other properties like thermal conductivity are used. Using Figure 1 during material selection can help to prevent part failure in the long run for example due to electrical corrosion (migration of flame retardants on surface). 

Thank you for reading and #findoutaboutplastics

Greetings, 

Herwig 

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Literature:

[1] https://www.findoutaboutplastics.com/2022/06/flame-retardants-why-do-we-need-them.html

[2] https://webstore.ansi.org/Standards/DIN/dineniso10432016-1640336

[3] https://www.wikiwand.com/de/ISO_1043

[4] https://plastics-rubber.basf.com/global/en/performance_polymers.html