Thermal behavior and fire performance of nylon-6,6 fabric modified with acrylamide by photografting

Our previous study shows that surface photografting modification with maleic anhydride followed by reacting with triethanolamine can improve the flame retardancy of nylon-6,6 fabric. In this study, acrylamide was used as a grafting monomer to improve the flame retardancy of nylon-6,6 fabric. The effects of monomer concentration and irradiation time on photografting were investigated. The surface structure of the sample was analyzed by attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Flame retardancy was characterized by limiting oxygen index test (LOI), the vertical burning test and cone calorimeter. The grafted sample has a higher LOI value than the untreated sample, and has no melting drip during the vertical burning test. The improvement of the flame retardancy and char formation of the nylon-6,6 fabric have also been verified by the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.