The Thermal Behaviour of a Blend of Cotton and Fire-retardant Polyester Fibres: A Kinetic Study

Abstract
This work compares the thermo-oxidative degradation of cotton and fire-retardant polyester-fibre (PESFR) fabrics and that of a cotton/PESFR blend. The association in a blend of PESFR with cotton fibres improves the burning behaviour of the latter. The invariant-kinetic-parameter (IKP) method allows one to modelise the degradation of the material, and in particular to compute the degradation velocity. We demonstrate that the ‘fuel-flow’ rates give rise to the fire retardancy of the materials and that the latter, in this case, does not depend on the nature of the gases evolved.