Flame Retardant Treatments of Nylon Textiles: A Shift towards Eco-Friendly Approaches

Among the synthetic polymeric textiles, Nylon (Polyamide) textiles (Nylon66/Nylon 6) are one of the most widely used materials, especially as apparel and industrial uses for their excellent properties, namely higher strength and good wear resistance. Unfortunately, due to their organic structures, they show the relative ease of burning, which poses a great risk to fire. For the flame retardant (FR) treatment of nylon textiles, several strategies have been developed throughout the years and the earlier studies show the enormous uses of petroleum-based flame retardant compounds via energy intensive application methods. However, the rapid improvement in living standards as well as the recent call for a reduction of environmental impacts during manufacturing and use have been pushed researchers to come up with environmentally benign chemistries and processes. Therefore, the challenges in search of the most sustainable, efficient and durable flame retardant treatments for nylon textiles still remain as a hot topic to be addressed. This chapter discusses the eco-friendly approaches that have been taken in escalating the fire performance of these novel nylon textiles, especially focusing on the applied compounds and the application techniques along with the durability issues of such applications.