PRIN 2022 “FLARECO”
Title: Eco-friendly, washing-durable FLAme-REtardant finishing for cotton fabrics by COvalent grafting of α-amino acid-derived polyamidoamines .
ICCOM Principal Investigator: Silvia Pizzanelli.
Project type: National.
Duration: 16/10/2023 – 15/10/2025.
Abstract: Fire represents a serious life threat. One-third of fires occur indoors, where cotton is commonly used. Cotton is not fire resistant, hence treatment with flame retardants (FR) is typically used when cotton textiles with fire safety features are required. However, the currently used FRs have a significant environmental impact and produce hazardous smoke during combustion. The aim of the project is to develop a sustainable, safe and efficient finishing process making cotton permanently flame retardant. The process involves the use of polyamidoamines (PAAs) derived from α-amino acids as FRs. They do not release smoke during combustion and are both bio- and eco-friendly, although they can be easily washed off in water. Their grafting onto cotton, proposed for the first time in this project, is expected to overcome this drawback. In order to gain insight into the mechanism of action of PAAs, the structural changes occurring during the thermal oxidation of cotton grafted with PAAs will be monitored using solid-state NMR, IR, Raman, and XPS spectroscopies.
Coordinator: Prof. Elisabetta Ranucci, University of Milan.
Partnership: CNR-ICCOM, University of Milan.
ICCOM participants: Silvia Pizzanelli.
Financed by: Projects MUR PRIN2022, project code no. 202237JYZN.
Project overall budget: 202.115,00 €.
ICCOM budget: 82.322,00 €.
