Flame and smoke retardant elastomers formed by grafting vinylidene chloride on diene/butyl acrylate copolymers

Abstract

An elastomeric flame and smoke retardant graft copolymer consisting essentially of a backbone copolymer derived from a conjugated diene and butyl acrylate and a side chain polymer derived from vinylidene chloride is prepared by polymerization under emulsion conditions. The graft copolymer may contain from 10 to 70 percent by weight of units derived from the conjugated diene, from 5 to 40 percent by weight of units derived from butyl acrylate and from 15 to 75 percent by weight of units derived from vinylidene chloride. In addition to excellent flame and smoke retardant characteristics, the graft copolymer exhibits excellent low temperature flexibility. The graft copolymers can be utilized in applications such as cushioning, insulation and coating applications where such characteristics are of major importance.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.