EVALUATION OF HEALTHY AND ECOLOGICAL FRIENDLY FLAME RETARDANTS FOR TEXTILES USING THERMAL ANALYSIS

Flame Retardants (FR) are a group of anthropogenic environmental contaminants used at a relatively high concentration in many applications. Currently, the largest marked group of FRs is halogenated FR, and many of them are considered toxic, persistent and bio accumulative. Non-halogenated alternatives are a possible solution for the problem, but there is a lack of knowledge concerning environmental impact, health risks during the production process and final use. The main objective of the LIFE-FLAREX project that supports this work, is the mitigation of the environmental and human health impact of flame retardants used in textiles, looking for new efficient more ecological and healthy alternatives, able to replace the most common FR’s that include toxic compounds like halogens, formaldehyde and antimony. The aim of this work is the determination of the effect of conventional and ecological flame retardants on cotton and polyester fabrics by the application of differential scanning calorimetry DSC and thermogravimetric analysis TGA. Results have been compared with those given by the best FR applied to cotton/polyester blended fabric. The application of DSC up to 550ºC and TGA up to 600ºC in N2 and O2 atmospheres give results that are in accordance with those yielded by the micro-scale combustion calorimeter. Onset temperatures of decomposition, steps of loss of mass by temperature and final residues, enable to evaluate the thermal efficiency of the different flame retardants. The considered flame retardants are based on expandable graphite, dialkyl phosphono carboxylic acid amide and decabrome diphenyl ethane with antimony trioxide. The results have been compared with those given by the application of ammonium polyphosphate and guanidine phosphate on cotton/polyester 50/50 blend.