Abstract: The smoke toxicity of the novel flame retardant low-density polyethylene (LDPE) composites with good flame retardant properties and excellent water resistance was studied by mice experiments, and the upper limit of the no death smoke concentration of the smoke was assessed. Furthermore, different heating temperatures were selected to research the smoke toxicity for the flame and flameless combustion. The results show that the smoke toxicity of the flame retardant LDPE composites with flame combustion is much smaller than that with the flameless combustion. Meanwhile, fire risk assessment of flame retardant LDPE composites is achieved by fire performance index and fire development index. The work provides some experimental data for preparing environment-friendly flame retardant LDPE composites with excellent properties.

Key words: low-density polyethylene (LDPE), flame retardancy, smoke toxicity, mice test