Phosphorous-nitrogen-silicon modified graphene oxide based fire retardant coating for cotton fabric

A facile and effective method to prepare novel phosphorylated amino graphene oxide (PA-GO) fire retardant material was discussed in this report. PA-GO was prepared using graphene oxide nanoparticle, (3-aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane (APTMS), formaldehyde, and hypophosphorous acid. PA-GO imparted excellent fire retardancy to the fabric when applied on cotton fabric by a dip coating method. The PA-GO coated cotton fabric (CTPA-GO) was tested using various characterization techniques to understand its morphology, composition, thermal stability, and combustion nature. When cotton fabric (control) and CTPA-GO (coated fabric) were exposed to a flame, control fabric burned rapidly producing ash, whereas coated fabric released little smoke at start but did not ignite and maintained its original shape and size even after exposing to flame for >160 s. The PA-GO coating cross-linked with cotton fabric at higher temperature formed thermally stable structure and opposed the exposure of fire to the underlined fibre. The limiting oxygen index (LOI) value for the coated fabric was 32.3 % as compared to the control sample 17.9 %. The tensile strength of the fabric was retained effectively after PA-GO treatment. Pigment acrymine binder paste was used to improve the durability of the coating on fabric inside water, which helped in maintaining the fire retardant properties after water soak test.