Effect of urea additive on the thermal decomposition of greige cotton nonwoven fabric treated with diammonium phosphate

This study showed that greige cotton nonwoven fabric can effectively be flame retardant by applying the phosphorus of diammonium phosphate (DAP) as low as 0.8 wt% with the addition of urea. At such a low content of phosphorus, the char length and limiting oxygen index (LOI) were continuously decreased and increased, respectively, as the concentration of urea increased. The effect of urea additive on the thermal decomposition of flame retardant greige cotton nonwoven fabric was investigated by thermogravimetry, ATR-FTIR, XRD, 1H → 13C CP/MAS NMR, and SEM. The results indicated that, upon heating, urea not only facilitated the phosphorylation reaction of DAP but also introduced carbamate groups into cellulose to decrease the degree of crystallinity prior to the decomposition of the crystalline cellulose. Compared with DAP treatment alone, the addition of urea accelerated the decomposition of glycosyl units, which resulted in a slight increase of weight loss and decrease of char yield. The char morphology observed after LOI tests indicates that urea released nonflammable gases, which blew the carboneous char layer to protect the underlying substrate.