OPP Feature Usage

O-phenylphenol, a white flake crystal, is an important new type of fine chemical products and organic intermediates, which is widely used in sterilization, anti-corrosion, printing and dyeing auxiliaries, surfactants, stabilizers and flame retardants for the synthesis of new plastics, resins and polymer materials. Its specific uses are as follows:

Antiseptic and bactericidal

As o-phenylphenol and its sodium salt have high herbicidal activity, broad-spectrum bactericidal and fungicidal ability, and are non-toxic and tasteless, they are good preservatives, which can be used for mildew prevention and freshness preservation of fruits and vegetables, especially for citrus, and can also be used to treat lemons, pineapples, melons, fruits, pears, peaches, tomatoes and cucumbers, so as to minimize the decay.

Dye carrier

O-phenylphenol and its water-soluble sodium salt can be used as the dye carrier of polyester fiber, and also can be used as the carrier of hydrophobic synthetic fibers such as chlorine fiber, polyester fiber, etc.

Flame retardant materials

As the polymeric materials containing organophosphorus compounds will form a graphite like carbonized film on the surface of the materials when burning, which insulates the polymer from the air, it has good flame retardant performance, high flame retardant efficiency, low volatility, good oil resistance and hydrolysis resistance, and will gradually replace the inorganic and halogen containing flame retardant materials used today. With o-phenylphenol as raw material, a new phosphorus containing flame retardant intermediate DOPO can be synthesized, which mainly has the following applications:

(1) Flame retardant polyester

DOP0 as raw material reacts with itaconic acid to produce intermediate ODOP-BDA, which can partially replace ethylene glycol to obtain a new phosphorus containing flame retardant polyester. The results showed that when the phosphorus content in PET and PEN reached 0.75% and 0.5% respectively, the polyester showed good flame retardancy. The annual production of polyester in the world has reached more than 30 million tons. If 5% of them are phosphorus containing flame retardant polyester, it needs more than 50000 t/a of o-phenylphenol.

(2) Epoxy resin

Epoxy resin has excellent bonding properties, electrical insulation properties and other advantages, and is widely used in adhesives, electronic instruments, aerospace, coatings and advanced composite materials. In 2004, the consumption of epoxy resin in the world reached more than 200000 tons/year. DOPO reacts with benzoquinone to form ODOPB, which partially replaces bisphenol A to form a new flame retardant epoxy resin. The research shows that the flame retardant effect of the newly synthesized phosphorus containing flame retardant epoxy resin is better than that of the epoxy resin containing 17.26% Br when the P content is 2.1%, without smoke, and the thermal stability is also better than that of the epoxy resin without flame retardant.

(3) Organic dissolution

Using DOPO as raw material, 2DOPO-A was synthesized to partially replace DABP, the monomer of polyamide. The new polyamide obtained was soluble in NMP, DMAc, DMF, DMSO and other solvents. At the same time, the thermal stability and flame retardancy at high temperatures were also significantly improved.

(4) Antioxidant

Taiwan patents reported that DOPO was used to synthesize phosphorus containing antioxidants for unsaturated polyester, phenols and oils, and Formosa Plastics Group was used for copper based computer sheets with good thermal stability.

(5) Stabilizer

The Japanese patent reported that the stabilizer of the polymer material synthesized by DOPO can improve the stability of the polymer compound during hot processing by adding this compound during the processing of polyethylene, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride.

(6) Luminous matrix

Organic light emitting diodes are important optoelectronic materials. Sun et al. used DOPO derivatives as monomers to synthesize polymers with luminescent properties. DOPO derivatives act as emitters and can emit blue light with a wavelength of 325 to 350 nm, which can be applied to organic light emitting diodes.

Polymerization monomer

Phenolic resin has the advantages of high mechanical strength, good electrical insulation, excellent heat resistance, flame retardant, etc., and is widely used to prepare glass fiber reinforced plastics, molding compounds, coatings, adhesives, etc. However, phenolic resin also has disadvantages, such as poor heat resistance, and new phenolic resin is synthesized by replacing phenol with o-phenylphenol. This resin has high thermal stability and low water absorption.