Phenolic Foam Reinforced by Cedar’s Resin

Recently phenolic foams have been received much attention because of their excellent properties including flame resistance, low density, high thermal stability over a broad temperature range and low generation of toxic gases during combustion. Cedar resin was used as a toughening agent to modify the brittleness of phenolic foam. The cedar resin was first introduced to the phenol formaldehyde resin. The mixture was successfully used to prepare phenolic foam using appropriate combinations of flowing agent. Benzene Sulfonic acid was employed as a curing agent. Orthophosphoric acid and nonionic surfactant polyoxyethylene were used as foaming agent and surfactant respectively.

The mechanical properties results showed that the incorporation of cedar resin into phenolic foam dramatically improved the compressive strength indicating the excellent toughening effect of cedar resin. In addition this property is depended to the percentage of the cedar resin. The apparent density data indicated that the addition of cedar resin can increase the apparent density of phenolic foam.