Abstract: Layered inorganic compounds are potential flame retardant materials with good flame retardant performance. In particular, inorganic composites or inorganic-organic hybrids may be a promising candidate of flame re-tardants. This review introduces the thermal stability, flame retardancy, smoke suppression and their mecha-nism of layered inorganic-based flame retardants. The results indicate that the incorporation of layered in-organic based flame retardants can improve the thermal stability and residual yield at high temperature, flame retardancy and smoke suppression. The improved flame retardancy and smoke suppression performances were mainly ascribed to layered inorganic based flame retardants with excellent lamellar barrier effect and outstanding catalytic carbonization performance, which was propitious to form compact and stiff carbonaceous ceramic layer, and suppressed efficiently the heat and mass transmission between polymer nanocomposites and flame zone.

Key words: layered inorganic compounds, thermal stability, flame retardants, mechanism