An eco-friendly, highly efficient, and transparent coating derived from guar gum and citric acid for flame retardant treatment of cotton fabrics

Ehsan Naderi Kalali; A M Abdel-Mohsen; Marjan Entezar Shabestari; O Pop-Georgievski; Zdenek Stary; Rasha M Abdel-Rahman; Chengshou Zhao; Xin Wang; Nima Esmaeili; Saeid Lotfian; Josef Petrus

doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.127506

An eco-friendly, highly efficient, and transparent coating derived from guar gum and citric acid for flame retardant treatment of cotton fabrics

Int J Biol Macromol. 2023 Dec 31;253(Pt 7):127506. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.127506. Epub 2023 Oct 18.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Fire Safety Engineering, Faculty of Geosceince and Environmental Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China.
² Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, 16200 Praha, Czech Republic; CEITEC-Central European Institute of Technology, Brno University of Technology, Purkyňova 656/123, Brno 61200, Czech Republic; Pretreatment and Finishing of Cellulosic Based Textiles Department, Textile Industries Research Institute, National Research Centre, 33 EL Buhouth St., Dokki, Giza 12622, Egypt.
³ Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, 16200 Praha, Czech Republic.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. Electronic address: wxcmx@ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural resources engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå 97187, Sweden.
⁶ Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0LZ, UK.
⁷ CEITEC-Central European Institute of Technology, Brno University of Technology, Purkyňova 656/123, Brno 61200, Czech Republic.

PMID: 37863129
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.127506

Abstract

A highly efficient, bio-ecofriendly, and transparent flame retardant (FR) for cotton fabric was developed and deposited onto the cellulose skeletal structure of cotton fabric through a one-pot sol-gel process. The flame retardant functional coating is composed of ammonium polyphosphate (APP), guar gum (GG), citric acid (CA), and a negligible amount of catalyst. Cotton fabrics were impregnated with different concentrations of ammonium polyphosphate and guar gum, with citric acid as a crosslinking agent. The overall crosslinking and grafting process was proven by FTIR and XPS. Based on the results, the designed coating exhibits over 90 % transmittance in the visible region. A 15 g/m² flame-retardant coating induces excellent flame retardant efficiency at ultra-low flame-retardant concentrations of less than 6.25 wt%. Only a 5.25 wt% flame retardant concentration demonstrated condensed phase action, which resulted in 58.5 % and 73.6 % reductions in the pHRR and THR, respectively. Moreover, the limiting oxygen index (LOI) value showed a 74 % increase. The mechanical performance of FR coated cotton fibers was slightly reduced.

Keywords: Bio-based flame retardant; Sol-gel coating; Transparency.

MeSH terms

Ammonium Compounds*
Citric Acid
Flame Retardants*
Polyphosphates / chemistry

Substances

Flame Retardants
guar gum
Citric Acid
Ammonium Compounds
Polyphosphates