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• By foam finishing with sodium polyborate, cotton fabric obtains good flame retardancy and maintains softness and breathability. • The flame retardant does not involve Cl or P-containing chemicals. • Foam finishing consume lower water or solvent than dip-padding finishing. The conventional process of imparting flame retardancy to cotton fabrics requires the consumption of large amounts of water, chemicals, and energy, which usually involves halogen-containing and phosphorus-containing chemicals. In this work, an eco-friendly sodium polyborate (SPB) foam was creatively introduced onto the cotton fabric surface by a bladed coater to improve the fire resistant performance. For the cotton sample with only 6.7% weight gain (WG) of SPB coating, the LOI value of cotton fabric (SPB treated cotton-1) was enhanced to 32.6% from 18.5%, the damaged length was decreased to 5.7 cm, and the sample self-extinguished in the vertical burning test. The peak of heat release rate value, total heat release value, and total smoke production (TSP) value decreased by 87.0%, 72.7%, and 22.2% respectively compared with those of the control sample. The TSP was further decreased by 80.6% when the WG of SPB was 16.7%. Besides, the SPB treated cotton showed enhanced antibacterial activities against S.aureus and E.coli. Particularly worth mentioning is in the SPB foam finishing procedure, no organic solvent and P or Cl-containing chemicals were involved, and the processing time was only around 3 min with obviously reduced water consumption, compared with dip-padding finishing. More importantly, SPB treated cotton kept good softness, whiteness, water vapor permeability, and air permeability. The SPB foam finishing in this work shows considerable potential in realize good flame retardancy on cotton fabrics by eco-friendly and high-efficient strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible polyurethane foam (FPUF) is widely used in our life, but it is inherent flammable. The demand for environmental-friendly multi-functional FPUF has been increasing rapidly in the last decade. In this work, a novel bio-based flame retardant coating was constructed by chemically reacting sodium alginate (OSA) and polydopamine (PDA) on the FPUF, followed by depositing nanorod-like β-FeOOH molecules through complexation reaction to form a biomimetic structure. The limiting oxygen index of the coated FPUF samples reached 25.5%. The peak heat release rate was reduced by 45.0%, and the smoke density of the coated sample was decreased by 69.1% compared to that of the control FPUF sample. It was proposed that the OSA-PDA-β-FeOOH decomposed during combustion to promote the formation of compact crosslinked char and released inert gases to dilute the combustible gases, and the β-FeOOH transferred to Fe 2 O 3 to settled the smoke particles reducing the smoke release. Furthermore, the coating with shark skin like structure endowed FPUF antibacterial ability because of its good superoleophobicity underwater. This work provided a novel strategy to construct a biomimetic multifunctional coating on the FPUF. [Display omitted] • A biobased coating was constructed on flexible polyurethane foam (FPUF). • The coating with a biomimetic structure improved the flame retardancy of FPUF. • The LOI of the coated FPUF reached 25% after washing and/or abrasion. • The coating decreased the peak smoke density of FPUF by 68.5%. • FPUF with superoleophobicity underwater showed antibacteria for cleaning application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]