Chapter 3: Animal Product-derived Flame Retardants

Driven by the increased sustainability awareness in both fire retardants and the environment, recent years have witnessed the use of animal products as a new class of bio-based fire retardants for polymeric materials. Animal-derived products, such as animal proteins (e.g., DNA), dopamine (DA) and others (e.g., eggshells, oyster shells and wool), have been explored to be used to create fire-retardant materials. This chapter summarizes the historical development of animal product-derived fire retardants and provides and highlights some successful examples of their use for different types of polymeric matrices, as well as their possible fire-retardant mechanisms. Following this, their key limitations are briefed as well followed by a discussion of some future perspectives.