Making home appliances safer will require the use of non-flammable or flame-retardant materials

On April 26th, a reporter from China Enterprise News got the news from the “China Flame Retardant and Environmental Safety” seminar. By then, the plastic enclosures of home appliances such as air conditioners, heaters, kitchen appliances, etc., have been forced to use non-flammable or flame-retardant materials.

It is expected that by the end of this year, the "General Requirements for Fire Safety of Electrical Appliances" will be fully communicated with relevant home appliance companies and associations and will be formally promulgated after reaching a consensus. This will increase the fire protection performance of our home appliances to a new level."

According to Dr. Han Songqing, member of the China Flame Retardant Association, “The electrical safety standards for electrical appliances have been introduced. In recent years, the Fire Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security has found out that household appliances have become the main culprit causing fires. The pressure on the fire department is very high in the Ministry. , so they are eager to improve the fire rating of home appliances."

Statistics from the Ministry of Public Security's Shenyang Fire Protection Bureau show that the number of cases of electrical product fires in fire e-certification in 2007-2011 accounted for 13.11%, and the number of cases concerning electrical products involved in fires was considerable.

At present, China's plastic housing of household appliances does not require the use of flame-retardant materials. Only in the case of printed circuit boards and other components that involve green certification, will it be added fire retardant to increase the fire performance. In countries such as Europe and the United States, there is no mandatory addition of flame retardant to the plastic housing of home appliances, but many companies have actively followed it.

What is worrying for home appliance companies is that once the above standards are implemented, the promotion of home appliance fire protection performance will also increase the production cost of enterprises. However, as the chairman of the bromine flame retardant sustainable development promotion committee and relevant person of Jiangsu Suli Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd., “The use of flame retardants will not bring greater cost pressure to home appliance companies. To use bromine As an example of flame retardants, the production costs of enterprises are generally around 10-20 yuan."

The Secretary-General of the China Flame Retardant Society, Professor Zhou Zhengyi also believes that “flame retardants are additives that must be used in electronics, electrical appliances, building materials and other products. They are bromine-based and halogen-free. Among them, brominated flame retardants are used in the Chinese market. The application of the most widely used, with high flame-retardant efficiency, good heat resistance, wide application area, suitable price and other features, in all the current 77 kinds of brominated flame retardants are green, can be used in large quantities." It is believed that the use of flame retardant materials is becoming more and more widespread.