Investigation on UV/flame retardant protection of outdoor‐applied cotton fabrics by tannic acid/phytic acid system

Abstract

The ultraviolet/flame retardant protection cotton fabric is successfully prepared using a spray baking process with tannic acid (TA) and phytic acid (PA) as key ingredients to address the issues of cotton fabric such as high flammability and lack of ultraviolet (UV) resistance. With respect to the treated fabric by 4 wt% PA solution and 3 wt% TA solution, it presented 29.5% limited oxygen index (LOI) value, 8.0 cm damaged length and 26.4 ultraviolet protection factor (UPF), while they were 28.3%, 7.5 cm and 30.6 for treated fabric by 3 wt% PA solution and 4 wt% TA solution, which indicated that in the mixed system, although TA primarily acted as an anti‐UV agent, it also exhibited flame retardant properties, and PA primarily functioned as a flame retardant and could provide a certain degree of UV protection. The prepared cotton fabric through this facile method presented excellent UV/flame retardant protection capabilities, and improved the functional efficiency of TA and PA materials. Moreover, as‐prepared fabric showed great application potential, especially in outdoor‐applied fields such as sportswear, sunshade tents, sunshade hats, and so on.