Professor Bernhard Schartel
Visiting Professor

Dr. habil. Bernhard Schartel, a distinguished expert in flame retardancy of polymeric materials, is the working group leader “Fire Retardancy of Polymers” at the BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Berlin, Germany. He is running several projects financed by the German Research Foundation, Federal Ministry of Education and Research and industrial partners. Bernhard has published extensively in the field flame retardancy of polymers since 2002, including several book chapters and over 50 ISI journal papers. He is member of the editorial board of the journals “Fire and Materials” and “Polymer Degradation and Stability”, guest editor of a special topic issue of Polymer for Advanced Technologies (Vol. 17, No. 4, April 2006) on "Nanocomposites and Flame Retardancy" and edited the book “Advances in the Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials: Current Perspectives Presented at FRPM'05, Books on Demand, Norderstedt, 2007” after hosting the FRPM’05 at the BAM in Berlin 2005.  

A polymer scientist with a broad background in different polymeric materials, polymer analysis and methods, Bernhard is a Visiting Professor with the School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, for a three year period beginning April 2011.

Current Interests:

Fire behaviour and fire properties of polymeric materials, flame retardancy mechanisms and corresponding structure-property-relationships to enhance the development of innovative, sustainable and tailored fire retardant polymeric materials  

Topics:

  • Novel halogen-free/phosphorus containing flame retardants
  • Fire retardancy of carbon fibre composites and composites in fire
  • Tailored halogen-free flame retardancy of thermoplastics and their composites
  • Flame retardancy by nanocomposites
  • Green flame retardancy of biopolymers and biocomposites
  • Halogen-free flame retardancy of foams
  • Fire retardancy by surface modification, advanced and intumescent coatings
  • Halogen-free flame retardancy of polymer blends
  • Assessing fire retardancy concepts with bench scale methods