AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

Textile materials constitute the majority of various market products due to their unique properties. However, the high combustibility of the material used in textile fabrics and fibers made them highly flammable and thermally less stable. This defect will threaten the human life of textile consumers and reduce the lifetime display of historical textiles. Therefore, flame-retardant materials should be added to textile fabrics to reduce their flammability properties. Treatment of textile fabrics with these materials can be through different ways such as impregnation, back coating and layer by layer self-assembly. Various materials have been used as flame-retardant to textile fabrics. Recently, various nanomaterials have been used as flame retardants for textile materials. TiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles have been used extensively in flame-retardant treatment of textile fabrics. on the other hand, the historical importance of archaeological textiles in museums force the scientists to find a solution to various challenges, such as high combustibility, ease of ignition, light, relative humidity and temperature effects.

Novel flame-retardant back coating layer for historic textile fabrics was developed. Silica nanoparticles originated from agriculture waste rice husk were prepared through one pot thermal method. Rice husk is considered as agricultural waste products. The abundance, low price and high yield of silica in rice husk encourage the scientists to produce cost-effective silica particles from rice husk for various applications. In this study, we report for the first time the use of silica nanoparticles prepared rice husk (RH-SNP) along with organic borate in flame-retardant back coating formulations. Then the obtained composite used as back coating flame retardant layer to linen fabrics which used as an inner layer and support to the historical textiles. The morphological and structure properties of nanoparticles were studied. The silica nanoparticles were further impregnated with organic borate producing flame-retardant composite. The obtained composite incorporated with the binder by mechanical mixing providing flame-retardant coating paste. The coating paste spread on the back surface of textile fabrics. Varied compositions of nanoparticles, binder and organic borate were studied in the back coating layer. The flammability, thermal stability and mechanical properties of the blank and treated samples of linen fabrics as an inner support to the historical textiles were investigated. Flame retardancy of the back-coated linen samples has improved achieved high class of flame-retardant textile fabrics of zero rate of burning compared to 80.3mm/min for blank. The synergistic effect of flame retardancy between nanoparticles and organic borate was investigated. The tensile strength of the flame retardant fabrics was enhanced by 27% and elongation was improved. The effect of industrial aging on the flame retardancy and mechanical properties of flame-retardant back coating textiles was studied.