Cotton flame retardancy : state of the art and future perspectives

As clearly reported in the scientific literature, the history of cotton flame retardancy is very old: this is easily attributable to the chemical and physical properties of this fibre that made it predominant during the 20th century; at present, it is only exceeded in volume by polyester. As a consequence, the huge number of papers published in the scientific literature so far covers an extended period and, sometimes, it could be easy to forget some of the knowledge already developed in the past and to focus the attention on the recent highlights only. Therefore, the present work is aimed to review the most significant scientific and technological results about the flame retardancy of cotton, merging the past experience and the current efforts, trying also to foresee a possible scenario for the next future. After a historical excursus on the achievements up to 2010, the review will summarize the recent developments reached in the so-called “era of nanotechnology” for cotton, as a consequence of the setup of new approaches like nanoparticle adsorption, Layer by Layer assembly and sol–gel processes. Finally, a possible alternative development route indicated by the potential exploitation of bio-macromolecules as green flame retardant systems will be briefly discussed.