LAUSR

An intumescent flame retardant working with various combinations of acid source, blowing agent, and char former promises high performance and low toxicity. However, the research for more potent functional constituents and their best combination is still extremely important. Here we report on a novel way to use keratinous fibers as the host material for creating an effective flame retardant. A simple solution-based treatment to implant amine phosphate and phosphoric acid in the fiber through sequential monomer infiltration is found to be significantly effective for applying flame retardancy and reducing the flammability of polymeric materials. After the flame-retardant fiber modification, polypropylene (PP) shows significantly improved flame retardancy to achieve V-0 grade and >70% reduced peak heat release rate in vertical burning and cone-calorimeter tests, respectively. We expect this strategy of converting the low-grade keratinous fiber to valuable flame-retardant material to become a novel and attract...