Preparation and properties research of plant fiber modified phenolic foam composite materials

With the advent of the world's energy crisis, the technologies of energy saving and environmental protection from exterior wall have gradually become hot topics in building industry. Phenolic foam has excellent flame retardant and heat-insulating properties, which can be used as exterior wall material. However, its brittleness and low strength limit the application. In this paper, natural plant fibers are added in phenolic foam before curing process, and the effects of modified method for the fibers and fiber content on the performance of the foam composite are investigated. The result show that the mechanical properties of the modified foam composite is highest when the length of raw plant fibers is 10mm and the fiber content is 5wt %. The corresponding specific compression strength of the modified foam is 55.3% higher than that of raw phenolic foam. With the treatment of fiber in flame retardant, the mechanical properties of the foam composite are good and the specific compression strength is improved by 33.7% with consistent heat-insulating and fire-retardant properties.