Green flame retardants for textiles

Abstract

Application of flame retardants plays a crucial protective function to reduce overall fire risk by suppressing the spread of fires or by delaying the time of flashover, thus enabling people or resources to have sufficient time to escape or rescue from the fire hazards, respectively. Among them, only few have gained commercial importance, are halogenated and phosphorus-based flame retardants those proved to be persistent are carcinogenic, bioaccumulative, and toxic for animals and humans. There has been an ever-growing demand for new flame retardant product options recognizing not only to ensure a favourable ecological profile but also to have a durable and cost-effective product. The sustainability concerns of various hazardous textile chemicals have been intensively researched. This chapter discusses fire science concepts, histrotical development in fire retardants their types, applications and some potential alternative products that have recently been reported—such as natural extracts of casein, spinach, and banana—along with currently reported technology such as DNA, nano materials, plasma, etc.