Hybrid coatings for durable flame retardant and hydrophilic treatment of Polyamide 6.6 fabrics.

• A hybrid coating was prepared from chitosan, melamine, urea, phytic acid and GO. • Improved flame retardancy and hydrophilicity of PA6.6 fabrics were realized. • Hybrid coating raised LOI value up to 25 % and stopped the melt dripping completely. • A maximum reduction in pHRR by 56 % was achieved with 5 BLs depositions. • Hybrid coatings could withstand against 10 home laundering cycles. The layer by layer (LBL) deposition of chitosan/melamine/urea (CS/ME/UREA) and phytic acid (PA) onto the acrylic acid (AA) grafted Polyamide 6.6 (PA6.6) fabrics including a pad-dry-cure treatment with chitosan/graphene oxide (CS/GO) nanocomposites were considered to improve the hydrophilicity and durable flame retardancy. Obtained results indicated that these hybrid coatings could significantly improve the flame retardancy as the limiting oxygen index (LOI) value reached up to 25 % from 18.5 % and could completely stop the melt dripping where the fabric sample with two bilayers deposition and simultaneously treated with CS/GO nanocomposite (PA6.6-g-AA-2BL-CS/GO) achieved a V-1 rating. A 2BLs deposited hybrid coating (i.e., PA6.6-g-AA-2BL-CS/GO) could decrease the peak heat release rate (pHRR) by 47.1 %; whereas a maximum reduction of pHRR by about 56 % was achieved for 5BLs deposition. Moreover, a considerable improvement in thermal stability and char yield% were also realized in the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) test. Furthermore, the as-prepared hybrid coatings imparted better hydrophilicity as a 2BLs deposition along with pad-dry-cure treatment by CS/GO could boost up the hydrophilicity of the treated fabrics further compared to the only 2BLs deposited fabric sample. In addition, the application of CS/GO nanocomposite could improve the stability of this coating and able to stop the dripping tendency even after 10 laundering cycles as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]