Facile construction of bio-based high fire-safety cellulose fabrics with well wearing performance

Abstract

The design of flame-retardant cellulose fabrics suffered from deterioration on wearing performance and environmental issue. Here, we developed facile construction of bio-based high fire-safety cellulose fabrics (lyocell) that exploited the bio-based flame-retardant coating (APD) by adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and dicyandiamide (DCD) via ionic reaction. The rich phosphorus/nitrogen elements of APD enabled the excellent fire safety of APD/Lyocell. Specifically, the APD/Lyocell₂ had a higher limiting oxygen index (LOI) value of 29.3 %, a lower peak of heat release rate (PHRR, decreasing by 66.6 %), and a reduced total heat rate (THR, lowered by 56.5 %) with respect to pure lyocell fabrics. Interestingly, the APD/Lyocell₂ exhibited well flame-retardant durability via passing the vertical burning test after 100 rubs. The satisfactory flame-retardant behaviors of APD/Lyocell derived from the excellent synergistic effect on the gaseous-solid phases, where APD could release more non-flammable gasses and generate phosphoric acid, polyphosphoric acid, etc. to accelerate itself and cellulose dehydration into char residues during combustion. More importantly, the wearing performance of APD/Lyocell fabrics, such as handle, air permeability and tensile strength, etc. almost remained after treatment. The ease of operation and use of bio-based coating made it a promising option to obtain the practical lyocell fabrics with flame-retardancy.

Keywords: Flame retardancy; Lyocell fabrics; Wearing performance.