Fire retardant ,materials and old furniture.

That's useful. Filed for reference.

If I put my pedant hat on, isn't point 1 of the summary worded oddly: "Filling materials must meet specified ignition requirements"

Shouldn't that be "Filling materials must meet specified non-ignition requirements"?

That's like Flammable and Inflammable.

I vaguely recall something one of my chemistry teachers said - 50 years ago or so.

Basically, everything will burn - if you get it hot enough.

Of course, in practical terms, the materials used in furnishing need not to ignite at the kind of temperatures they are likely to be exposed to. I assume, in broad terms, that is what is specified in the document above.

Technically no. Burning is a self sustaining exothermic chemical reaction that usually involves oxygen, either from the air or generated by the inflammable materials itself (like Li-ion batteries)

Other things melt, decomposed chemically, vaporise or turn to plasma but they don't burn..

The big push came IIRC when people were dying of smoke inhalation of plastic foam fillings. And you got flashovers from that smoke as well which wer explosive in natiure.

Things like horsehair are not so bad. Nor are feathers.

Indeed.

Manufactured stuff often burns because it's composed of long carbon chains from either natural or oil-based origin. Apply enough heat and oxygen and it because energetically advantageous to break those chains, down to CO2 ultimately.

But take say silica sand - SiO2. It's got enough oxygen already thanks very much and applying heat is not going to change that - it'll melt and vapourise but won't burn as there's no energetically advantageous bonds to break.

I think you can still get those from the foam materials, but the fire retardants mean the fire is not self-sustaining. If you have an external source of heat that keeps on being applied (eg a blowtorch or a furnace) then you'll decompose the foam into toxic/flammable gases, but it's much harder to get that started with a discarded cigarette than it previously was.

Being a natural product the compounds are different. You can still get flashover from gases from wood pyrolysis, but it takes more than with oil-based products. OTOH manufactured fire retardants may work better than the fire retarding properties of natural fibres.

Theo

Changes coming in October