The China Instrument and Control Society recently organized experts to evaluate Sichuan University's "real time online analysis instrument/system for polymer combustion", which is an achievement of the National Natural Science Foundation of China's major scientific research project (open application).
The evaluation and appraisal committee is composed of nine academicians in the fields of instrumentation, public safety, materials, and combustion. The chairman of the committee is Long Teng, an academician of CAE, vice chairman of the China Instrument and Control Society and President of Beijing Institute of Technology. Fan Weicheng of Qinghua University, an academician of CAE and internationally renowned fire safety expert, acted as the vice chairman. Xu Weilin, an academician of CAE and the executive vice president of SCU, attended the appraisal meeting and delivered a welcome speech. Head of SCU’s Office of Scientific Research and Development, among others, attended the appraisal meeting, too.
Organic polymer materials have been widely used in various fields of national economy and people's lives, with a volume output exceeding that of metal materials. In comparison with metal materials and inorganic non-metallic materials, organic polymer materials, however, are flammable and prone to ignition, causing fires, casualties, and property damage. To make organic polymer materials flame retardant is an effective measure to solve this embedded problem.Due to the lack of instruments that can accurately analyze the polymer combustion process in real-time, existing research on flame retardant mechanisms is conducted in non-real fire environments, which cannot effectively guide the design of flame retardant materials. What is worse, the conclusions are completely invalid for flame retardant design in some cases.Given that, the flame retardant organic polymer materials currently cannot be founded on scientific data alone, and the design is based on experience to a large extent.
Wang Yuzhong from the College of Chemistry has conducted basic research and application research on halogen-free flame retardant polymer materials for nearly 40 years. He proposed new theories and methods of flame retardancy, and developed various halogen-free flame retardant polymer materials systems and flame retardant technologies, which have been widely applied in domestic and foreign enterprises, achieving significant economic and social benefits.
With the support of the National Major Research Instrument Development Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the research team has developed a real-time online analysis instrument/system for polymer combustion process, which can scientifically demonstrate the true combustion behavior of polymers. (Development of a real-time online analysis system for polymer combustion process and research on its application in flame retardant performance and gas-phase flame retardant mechanism. 51827803).
The instrument can carry out real time online analysis of polymer heat release, smoke release, transient free radicals, functional groups, fine chemical structures, collection of smoke particles, and so on, filling the gap in the field of real-time online analysis and detection of polymer combustion.
The experts of the evaluation and appraisal committee inspected the operation and the testing of the instrument on site. They also listened to the work report of Wang Yuzhong, the technical report of the research fellow of Fu Ten,anovelty search report/ test report/ application report by a third party, and so forth. After discussion, the experts have come to the following conclusion.
"The real-time online analysis instrument for polymer combustion process" is the world's first scientific research instrument that can simultaneously detect and analyze the flame retardant performance, real combustion behavior, and flame retardant mechanism of polymers in real-time. Being difficult and innovative, the technology carries independent intellectual property rights. Its various performance/functional indicators are superior to existing commercial instruments used for flame retardant research both domestically and internationally. The overall technology is in the leading position in the world."
*The Chinese names begin with family name in this report.
