The 26th Flame Retardant Conference: A Quarter Century of Insights and Knowledge

The flame retardant industry expanded in the 1970s when synthetic materials became popular in the manufacture of products. The growing demand and consumption of these flammable products led many world governments to insist their manufacturers make them safer from fire.  In many countries, the use of flame retardant chemicals in flammable products is mandated. In recent decades, their worldwide use has increased as highly populated countries such as China and India have recognized the safety and protective value of flame retardant chemicals.

Presently, the flame retardant chemicals industry is in transition. Because many organizations and governments have reassessed the safety benefits of flame retardant chemicals against its harmful effects on human health and the environment, the use of some widely used flame retardant chemicals is being discontinued. However, emerging technology promises flame retardant protection with reduced or eliminated toxic effects.

The global consumption of flame retardant chemicals in 2013 and 2014 reached about $3.9 billion pounds and $4.2 billion pounds, respectively. In 2019, total consumption is projected to reach $5.7 billion, reflecting a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7%.

For 25 years, BCC Research has convened the Annual Conference on Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials. A signature staple of the industry, this cutting-edge conference focuses on the development of flame retardant chemicals and materials such as plastics, textiles, and surface coatings that inhibit, suppress, or delay the production of flames to prevent the spread of fire.

Come join this year’s conference to hear BCC Research's renowned analyst Marcanne Green, one of more than 40 expert speakers, share her insights. For the complete conference brochure and list of speakers, click here.

Find detailed information about the Conference by visiting the following link:

26th Annual Conference: Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials

2015 Flame Conference Promises to Provide the Latest Breakthroughs in Flame Retardancy

On May 17^th, the 26th Annual Conference on Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials will welcome scientific and technical specialists to the premier fire retardant event in the industry. Scheduled at the Sheraton Stamford Hotel (Connecticut) May 17-20, the conference not only provides participants cutting-edge information about recent innovations in the industry, but also terrific networking opportunities with world-class experts and fellow professionals.

The conference kicks off on Sunday, May 17^th, with a one-day Short Course that will acquaint industry newcomers with the evaluation and commercial applications of flame retardants. The main conference from May 18-20 will feature experts from around the globe who will share their latest research on topics such as foams and fabrics, nanocomposites, and new technology. Evening receptions on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will offer attendees additional networking opportunities during this vibrant four-day learning experience.

Prominent speakers at this year’s highly anticipated event include Charles Wilkie, (conference chairman, Marquette University), Dr. Matthew S. Blais (Fire Technology Department, Southwest Texas Research Institute) and Marshall Moore (Great Lakes Solutions). Overall, more than 40 informative sessions will offer a breadth of topics and industries that strike a balance between academia and industry, including “Material Selection Influence on the Flammability of Upholstered Furniture,” “Reformulating Targeted Materials: How This Impacts Aerospace OEMs”, and “Comparative Burn of Flat Panel Televisions from United States, Mexican and Brazilian Markets.”

Professor Jaime C. Grunlan appreciated last year’s conference so much, he’s back this year.  “Flame 2014 was the most technically strong topical conference I attended last year,” he says. “The networking was great and everything was very well-organized. If you want to know about the latest breakthroughs in flame retardant research, Flame 2015 is the conference to attend.”

We hope to see you there!

Find detailed information about the Conference by visiting the following link:

26th Annual Conference: Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials

Flame Retardant Flooring at the London Underground Station

After a successful trial at a London Underground station, a flame retardant natural rubber has been approved for commercial use in flooring.

Natural-FR, developed by the Tun Abdul Razak Research Center (TARRC), is a zero halogen, low smoke, low toxic modified NR compound that will help the matting maker meet sustainability targets in products. Because it’s derived from renewable resources, the product will “have a significant negative carbon footprint,” according to TARRC.

Before Natural-FR was certified for use, the industry used synthetic materials. But TARRC, the research and promotion center of the Malaysian Rubber Board, took on the challenge of developing a usable compound based on natural rubber, according to Marina Fernando, head of TARRC's industrial support unit.

“What we had to do was look at the various standards currently in place in Europe, do the various testing and achieve third-party certification,” she said. “You just can't go in and put the material anywhere. You have to go to a certified laboratory that would do all the tests.”

TARRC modified the natural rubber and then added fire retardant additives in order to meet criteria for smoke density, smoke toxicity, heat release rate, flame spread, and dry and wet slip resistance.

“What's proprietary is the modified natural rubber and the way we have optimized the additives package that goes into the rubber compound to give it the flame retardancy,” Fernando said.

TARRC also is looking to develop the compound for use in other applications.

For BCC Research flame retardant chemicals report, visit the following link:

Flame Retardant Chemicals: Technologies and Global Markets (CHM014M)

Biomarker Discovery Improves Treatment Options for Ovarian Cancer Patients

A biomarker that can help predict the success of chemotherapy in ovarian cancer patients has been discovered by researchers.

The discovery, by cancer researcher Madhuri Koti of Queen’s University, could lead to better treatment options in the fight against ovarian cancer.

Biomarkers are an indicator of a biological state or condition.

"Recent successes in harnessing the immune system to combat cancer are evidence for the significant roles of a cancer patient's immune responses in fighting cancer," Koti explains. "Many of these successes are based on boosting anti-cancer immunity via different therapies. Such therapies would prove to be most effective when coupled with markers predicting a patient's eventual response to a specific therapy".

Koti conducted the study in retrospective cohorts of more than 200 ovarian cancer patients. The study utilized a combination of cutting-edge and more established detection technologies for identifying such markers.

A major impact of this discovery is that these novel markers, when used at the time of treatment initiation in the specific type of ovarian cancer patient, will help oncologists make decisions on additional treatment needed in these patients, thus increasing their potential for survival.

Ovarian cancer is responsible for approximately 152,000 deaths worldwide each year. It has the highest mortality rate of all gynaecological cancers.

For our BCC Research reports on cancer or biomarkers, visit the following links:

Biological Therapies for Cancer: Technologies and Global Markets (BIO048C)

Radiotherapy: Technologies and Global Markets (HLC176A)

Global Markets for Reagents for Chromatography (MST034E)

Therapeutics for 'Silent' Cancers (PHM169A)

3D Cell Cultures: Technologies and Global Markets (BIO140A)

A “One-Pot Process” for Flame Retardants

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers took a trip to the grocery store and cooked up their best fire-resistant coatings for furniture padding yet. More important, these protective coatings were formulated in a single step, a process far simpler than the time-consuming “layer by layer” process deposition process required of previous “green” flame retardant candidates.

To formulate the fire protective coating, the NIST team prepared nine water-based mixtures composed of various combinations of potato starch, seaweed gel (agar), laundry booster, clay and similar everyday compounds. In laboratory tests, six of these "bioinspired" coatings reduced the peak heat release rate—a key measure of flammability—of polyurethane foam by at least 63 percent, compared with untreated foam.

Encouraged by the lab results, the team subjected the top-performing mixture—starch and a boron-containing compound used in deodorant and other products—to a full-scale fire test in which chairs padded with treated or untreated polyurethane foam were ignited.

The upholstered fabric of both chairs was completely engulfed in flames 90 seconds after ignition. In less than two minutes, the upholstery fabric on both chairs was completely consumed. Within six minutes, the untreated padding had burned completely, leaving a burning, melted pool. However, the flames on the chair treated with the NIST-devised coating remained confined to the padding 90 seconds after ignition, although the fabric had burned completely. Combustion could not be sustained and the flames did not spread because the coating produced a 71% drop in the total amount of heat released, the study reported.

Furniture fires are the leading cause of death in house fires. According to the National Fire Protection Association, they accounted for about 30% of more than 2,700 deaths in residential fires in 2013.

"The results of the full-scale fire tests are very encouraging," says NIST team leader Rick Davis. "The performance of our coating suggests that fire can be contained to burning furniture so that it does not spread, intensify to the point of flashover, and increase the risk of injury or death."

The study, published in the March 25, 2015 issue of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, reported the newest coatings were crafted with what the researchers call a "one-pot" process in which the ingredients were added to water, heated and stirred until the solution became a gel, and then cooled. Depending on the ingredients, preparation times ranged from about 30 minutes to two hours.

The uncomplicated process could lend itself to industry adoption. However, additional research is needed to determine the durability of the new coatings and to assess other properties affecting performance and manufacturing applications.

For BCC Research flame retardant chemicals report, visit the following link:

Flame Retardant Chemicals: Technologies and Global Markets (CHM014M)

Proteomic Technologies Fueling Market Potential of Biofuels like Switchgrass

A new generation of fuel crops—plants designed specifically to serve as feedstocks for fuels—would provide a clean, green and renewable alternative to the burning of fossil fuels, but only if their production is cost effective. These biofuels would require, among other developments, plants whose sugars are readily extracted and fermented into fuels by microbes.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have demonstrated that proteomic technology may offer a way to harness this exciting potential. Proteomics, a branch of the life sciences that studies proteins or peptides, particularly their functions and interactions, specifically considers technologies suited for large-scale, multiplexed analysis of proteins and peptides. Proteomics differs from conventional protein analysis such as immunoassay because it measures more than one protein or peptide simultaneously from a single sample.

Benjamin Schwessinger, a grass geneticist with JBEI’s Feedstocks Division, and his colleagues conducted the first proteomic analysis of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), a North American native prairie grass widely viewed as one of the most promising of all the fuel crops.

“Plant cell walls or biomass are costly to deconstruct for sugar release for downstream applications such as biofuels, but genetic modifications to plant cell wall structure could result in significant downstream economic impacts,” Schwessinger explains.

In profiling the switchgrass endomembrane from 10-day old dark grown shoots, Schwessinger and his team identified 1,750 unique proteins in shoots of the hardy perennial crop.

“That we were able to identify such a large number of proteins in our samples shows that proteomics will be useful when we start digging for proteins that will enable us to manipulate switchgrass for increased biofuel production.”

The global proteomics market is expected to more than double its $5 billion value in 2014 to more than $11.6 billion in 2019, reflecting a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18%. The main proteomics market segments include research, drug discovery and development, diagnostics and applied (agricultural, environmental and forensics).

The research/drug discovery and development segment of the market is forecast to reach almost $6.8 billion in 2019, up from almost $4 billion in 2014, corresponding with an 11.4% CAGR.

Rapid changes in technical fields such as biochips, mass spectrometry, single cell analysis and multi-omics are driving new products and applications in proteomics, creating unique market opportunities.

For our BCC Research report on proteomics, visit the following link:

Proteomics: Technologies and Global Markets (BIO034D)

Research on Malaria Vaccines Showing Positive Results

A discovery of how the body’s immune system protects against malaria may hold promise for a vaccine against the disease, which kills as many as 600,000 people each year, mostly children. Currently, no effective vaccine exists for the mosquito-borne disease, which infects the bloodstream and red blood cells, leading to fatigue, headaches, and in severe cases, death.

Antibodies play major roles in immunity to malaria, but a limited understanding of mechanisms mediating protection long has been a barrier to vaccine development. Researchers have known antibodies alone were mostly ineffective at targeting the malaria organism, leading them to believe the antibodies in people resistant to malaria must be getting help from other parts of the immune system.

Professor James Beeson, who heads Burnet’s Centre for Biomedical Research in Melbourne, Australia, said he and his research team discovered that antibodies “needed to recruit other proteins in the blood” in order to block malaria infection. This mechanism, known as a complement,” helps the antibodies coat the malaria organism, according to Beeson. “By working together,” he adds, “these two things are a double-hit that stops malaria from infecting red blood cells.”

The findings represent a major advance in understanding immunity to malaria and provide a much-needed strategy for the development and evaluation of vaccines.

Beeson says Burnet’s researchers will now apply this new knowledge to their strategies to create new and more effective malaria vaccines.

“Exploiting this malaria-blocking activity is a new approach in developing a vaccine. We have shown that it is possible to effectively generate this protective immune response by immunizing humans with a candidate vaccine,” Beeson says.

Historically, vaccines were developed to protect against bacterial and viral diseases that plagued the world population through the 1950s and 1960s. Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, smallpox and malaria, among others, were produced in mass quantities to treat large populations.

The advances in immunology, biochemistry, microbiology and biotechnology during the past four decades have opened up the possibilities of creating vaccines for a variety of diseases, including Alzheimer’s, certain cancers, HIV, multiple sclerosis, various tropical diseases, and autoimmune disorders such as diabetes, lupus erythematosus and arthritis.

Vaccines are also being developed against new targets, including Japanese encephalitis, meningitis, certain pollen allergies, metastatic melanoma, Type I diabetes, oral rotavirus, hypertension, and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli infection.

Currently, researchers are conducting more than 640 clinical trials around the world on a wide variety of vaccines. The World Health Organization estimates there are 120 new vaccines in pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical company pipelines.

In the United States, the FDA will approve a vaccine if there exist an adequate immunological response, patient safety and established effectiveness of the vaccine at controlling the disease. Vaccine development, approval and production are a costly and long-term venture for any pharmaceutical company. It demands separate, dedicated facilities, equipment and staff. This requires that there be potential revenue and large, diverse patient populations to allow a company to enter into a vaccine venture.

For our BCC Research report on vaccines, visit the following link:

Global Markets for Research Antibodies (BIO141A)

Biologic Therapeutic Drugs: Technologies and Global Markets (BIO079C)