Fire Retardancy of Polymeric Materials

Alexander B. Morgan received his B.S in Chemistry from Virginia Military Institute in 1994 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of South Carolina in 1998. Dr. Morgan has over twenty-seven years of experience in the areas of materials flammability, polymeric material flame retardancy, fire science, fire testing, thermal decomposition chemistry, and fire safety engineering with an emphasis on chemical structure property relationships and fire safe material design. He has helped academic, government, and industrial customers solve their flame retardant and fire safety needs in a wide range of applications. Dr. Morgan is on the editorial review board for Fire and Materials, and is the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Fire Science. He is also a member of ASTM, Sigma Xi, the International Association of Fire Safety Scientists, and the American Chemical Society. His current research areas include: New Flame Retardant Technology with Reduced Environmental Impact for Electronics, Building Materials, Bedding/Furniture, Wire & Cable, Transportation, Textiles. Fire Testing Method Development Fire Safety / Survivability for Aircraft and Ground Vehicles Materials Development, and Technology Assessment for Additive Manufacturing for Aerospace Applications Charles A. Wilkie received his BS degree in Chemistry from the University of Detroit in 1963 and his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Wayne State University in 1967. He subsequently joined Marquette University as an Assistant Professor and rose through the ranks until retiring in 2009; he now is Professor Emeritus. In 1978, he read a paper on phosphorus-based flame retardants and decided to move into that area. He has worked in the field of flame retardancy for more than 30 years. His initial work was to attempt to understand mechanistically how a flame retardant interacts with a polymer. His research group also did quite a bit of work on nano-composite based flame retardancy. Wilkie has served, and continues to serve, on the editorial boards of several journals and has been involved with organizing several meetings in this area.