Organophosphate FR treatment, page-3

June 11 - 14 the annual conference of " Recent advances in flame retardancy of
Polymeric Materials " will be held .
It  is intense reading , and having just got home , I was only able to skim through
the progam. However there is two sessions that will directly interest Alexium
shareholders . I will cut and paste these , however the more learned amongst us may make
more sense from the whole program .

" Chemical Functionalization of Flame Retardant Materials on a Nylon-Cotton Blend for Durable FR Clothing Applications Sammaiah Thota2 , Ramaswamy Nagarajan3 , Jayant Kumar2,4, Ravi Mosurkal1 , 1 US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center, Natick, Massachusetts.2 Center for Advanced Materials, University of Massachusetts, Lowell. 3 Department of Plastics Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Lowell. 4 Department of Physics and Applied Physics, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, ravi.mosukral,[email protected] In recent years, Army has significantly increased in its efforts to develop durable, environmentally benign and cost effective flame retardant (FR) clothing as the current FR protective materials (e.g. FR ACU) lack the one or more from the above mentioned criteria. Therefore, our current research efforts are focused on developing durable and cost effective FR fabrics based on nylon/ cotton blend (Nyco, 1:1 nylon:cotton), with comparable FR protection to the FR ACU. Although there are numerous traditional coating methods available to coat existing fabrics with FR materials, most of these traditional coating methods are based on weak, non-covalent interactions that are not durable to washing. Therefore, in the current work, we demonstrate enhanced durability through the surface chemical functionalization of Nyco fabric via covalent bonds. Initially surface functionalization was carried out using a versatile linker,1,1- carbonyldiimidazole to introduce active functional groups such as olefins and amines onto the fabric followed by crosslinking the phosphorous containing molecules. These functionalized fabrics demonstrated superior thermal and FR properties compared to control fabrics. We present the results from these studies and discuss the potential durable FR Nyco fabrics for civilian and military applications  "

The other session being a presentation by Alexium

" Alexiflam NF—Novel Method for Durable Flame Retardation of Cotton-Based Fabrics Robert Brookins, Research and Development, Alexium Inc., Greenville, SC, [email protected] Flame retardant cotton-based fabrics are a significant segment of the FR textile market with over 300 million square yards sold each year. For decades, THPX-based chemistry has been the standard FR treatment due its low cost, exceptional durability, and effective flame retardation. However, the process used to apply this chemistry is notably process intensive and requires specialized equipment. To provide a cost effective and facile alternative, Alexium has developed a reactive phosphorus-based polymer called Alexiflam NF. This product has a number of benefits including ultra-low formaldehyde (essentially formaldehyde free), effective flame retardation of cotton/polyester blends, and wash durability for 50+ laundering cycles. Notably, Alexiflam NF can be applied with standard textile finishing equipment, without the need for an ammoniation chamber. This talk will provide an overview of this product and its performance on a range of fabrics. "  

GLTA