Magnesium Hydroxide Nanoparticles
“Magnesium hydroxide (Mg(OH).sub.2), is employed as flame retardant in various polymer compositions. Magnesium hydroxide has advantages over certain other flame retardants in that it is both acid-free and halogen-free. Magnesium hydroxide decomposes endothermically when heated to yield magnesium oxide (MgO) and water. The water acts to smother the flame by diluting and/or excluding oxygen and flammable gases, and a heat insulating material can form on the surface of certain polymeric materials containing magnesium hydroxide when in contact with the flame, reducing the availability of potentially flammable decomposition products to the gas phase where combustion occurs.”
Nanoplatelet forms of metal hydroxide and metal oxide can be formed. These nanoplatelets are suitable for use in paper retention, drainage, and opacity, as fire retardants in plastics, rubbers, coatings and textiles and as agents for chemical and biological preventive and decontamination, in electronics and plasmonics.”
Recent US Patents
2/22/2011
7,892,447
Nanoplatelet metal hydroxides and methods of preparing same
Maddam of Aqua Resources, Florida, prepared nanoplatlets of magnesium hydroxide by electrolysis in the form of hollow tubes, 30 to 3500 nm long and thicknesses of 1 to 400 nm. (RDC 9/3/2011)