The flame retardancy of lyocell fibres

The objective of this work is to develop a flame retardant system for the recently developed solvent-spun regenerated cellulosic fibre, lyocell. The importance that flame retardant (FR) cotton and viscose cellulosic fibres have within the overall flame retardant textile market indicates the need for a similarly modified lyocell variant. Selected flame retardants are ideally those which are substantive to cellulose and so initial studies have focused upon methylolated phosphonoproprionamide derivatives. Initial experiments have shown that an FR lyocell fibre can be produced using half the amount of chemically bonded phosphorus usually applied to cotton to achieve the same level of flame retardancy.