Approaches to Improving the Durability of Flame Retardant Treatments on Cotton Nonwovens

Over the past few years we have been working on improving the flame reatardancy of cotton nonwovens in an economical way. Most of these approaches result in good FR properties, but they are not durable to washing. For some of the applications wash durability is desired, and we are conducting research to develop some durable or semi-durable FR treatments in an economical way. The approach is to produce loftier cotton nonwoven webs using a binder fiber, going through the through-air bonding process, and treating them with commercially available FR chemicals and binders. Care is being taken to select the combination of flame retardants and binders such that some degree of permanency can be achieved. These treated webs will be evaluated for their FR characteristics before and after washing. Preliminary results from this ongoing research are presented.