Efficient suppression of flammability in flame retardant viscose fiber through incorporating with alginate fiber

The flame retardancy of flame retardant viscose (FRV) fiber can be significantly further improved by simple blending with alginate (A) fiber, even though with the content of 10 wt%. Cone calorimeter results showed that longer time to ignition (TTI), lower peak heat release rate (PHRR) and total heat release (THR) can be achieved in FRV after mixing with A. For example, the TTI of FRV can be raised from 10 s to 41 s after blended with only 10 wt% A. The mechanism of the effective suppression of flammability mentioned above was put forward by thermogravimetric analysis coupled with Fourier transform infrared analysis (TG-FTIR) and pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS). It was found that the content of released CO2 for FRV/A was higher than that of pure FRV, and the content of the flammable gases for FRV/A, such as hydrocarbons, aldehydes, ethers and alcohols, was lower than that of FRV. In this way, the flame retardancy of FRV was effectively enhanced after blending with A. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.