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Abstract: Evaluating and analyzing the performance of flame retardant (FR) textiles are a critical part of research and development of new FR textiles products by the industry. The testing methods currently used in the industry have significant limitations. Most analytical and testing techniques are not able to measure heat release rate (HRR), the single most important parameter in evaluating the fire hazard of materials. It is difficult to measure HRR of textile fabrics using cone calorimetry because textile fabrics are dimensionally thin samples. The recently developed micro-scale combustion calorimetry (MCC) is able to measure the following flammability parameters for textile using milligram sample sizes: heat release capacity, HRR, temperature at peak heat release rate (PHRR), total heat release and char yield. In this research, we applied MCC to evaluate the flammability of different textile fabrics including cotton, rayon, cellulose acetate, silk, nylon, polyester, polypropylene, acrylic fibers, Nomex and Kevlar. We also studied the cotton fabrics treated with different flame retardants. We found that MCC is able to differentiate small differences in flammability of textile materials treated with flame retardants. We were also be able to calculate the limiting oxygen index (LOI) using the thermal combustion properties of various textile samples measured by the MCC. The calculated LOI data have yielded good agreement with experimental LOI results. Thus, we conclude that MCC is an effective new analytical technique for measuring textile flammability and has great potentials in the research and development of new flame retardants for textiles. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this research, the pH-dependency of ester crosslinking of cotton cellulose by BTCA was studied. It was found that the effectiveness of BTCA decreased as the pH of a BTCA solution increased, but the pH-dependency was less significant in pH range 2.2-2.8 than in a higher pH range. The wrinkle resistance and the amount of ester formed on cotton fabric treated with 6.0% BTCA at pH 2.8 was similar to that on the fabric treated with BTCA at pH 2.2, and was much higher than that treated with BTCA of pH 4.0. The tensile strength of the crosslinked fabric was also pH dependent. A BTCA solution with a lower pH resulted in more diminished fabric tensile strength. BTCA at pH 2.8 caused significantly lower cellulose degradation than that at pH 2.2, whereas it still maintained a high level of effectiveness for crosslinking cotton. Therefore, it was concluded that BTCA at pH 2.8 provides both a high level of crosslinking effectiveness and a high level of fabric strength retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]