In order to improve the flame retardancy of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fabrics, glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) was first grafted onto the surface of PAN fabric (PAN-g-GMA) by means of UV-induced photo grafting polymerization process. Then, PAN-g-GMA was chemically grafted with chitosan to obtain a bigrafted PAN fabric (PAN-g-GMA-g-CS). Finally, the flame-retardant PAN fabric (FR-PAN) was prepared by phosphorylation. The structure and elemental analysis of the samples were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The thermal degradation properties and combustion characteristics of the fabrics were accessed by thermogravimetric analysis (TG), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and cone calorimeter (CC). The results show that the onset thermal decomposition temperature of FR-PAN fabric is lower than that of the control sample due to the degradation of the grafting groups. The combustion test indicates that the FR-PAN fabric has an excellent flame-retardant property and the combustion rate is significantly reduced. In addition, the char residue of the burned FR-PAN fabric is over 97%, indicating excellent char-forming ability.
Keywords: chitosan; flame retardancy; glycidyl methacrylate; photo-grafting polymerization; polyacrylonitrile fabric.