In which, with our guest, Dr. Arlene Blum (www.arleneblum.com) of the Green Science Policy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, we discuss the toxicity of flame retardants in children’s products, furniture, and her success in changing the standards for these products so that flame retardants are unnecessary to prevent the most common smoldering fires. Flame retardants are still found in TVs. Then host Felicia Etzkorn and co-host Jamie Ferguson discuss a paper about the flammability of cotton and synthetic fabrics, including the limiting oxygen index (LOI), the heat release capacity (HRC), and the peak heat release rate (PHRR), as well as a potential less toxic flame retardant, sodium hypophosphite with succinic acid.

Green Science Policy Institute: https://greensciencepolicy.org

Six Classes Videos: https://www.sixclasses.org/videos

Stapleton HM, Klosterhaus S, Keller A, Ferguson PL, van Bergen S, Cooper E, Webster TF, Blum A (2011) Identification of Flame Retardants in Polyurethane Foam Collected from Baby Products. Env. Sci. Tech.45:5323-5331. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es2007462

Blum A, Gold MD, Ames BN, Jones FR, Hett EA, Dougherty RC, Horning EC, Dzidic I, Carroll DI, Stillwell RN, Thenot JP (1978) Children absorb tris-BP flame retardant from sleepwear: urine contains the mutagenic metabolite, 2,3-dibromopropanol. Science 201:1020. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/201/4360/1020.full.pdf

Yang CQ, He Q, Lyon RE, Hu Y, Investigation of the flammability of different textile fabrics using micro-scale combustion calorimetry, Polym. Degrad. Stab. 95 (2010) 108e115. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141391009004108

Post-note: N-methylol containing flame retardants like MDPA are associated with formaldehyde release. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017SRL....2450114Y/abstract