Preparation and characterization of flame-retardant lamellar Mg(OH)2 thin films on citric acid-treated cotton fabrics

Preparation and characterization of lamellar magnesium hydroxide (Mg(OH)(2)) thin films on cotton fabrics are reported in this paper. Mercerized cotton fabrics were treated with citric acid, so carboxyl groups were introduced to the surface of the fabrics. Mg(OH)(2) seeds were first adsorbed on the citric acid-treated cotton fabrics and then Mg(OH)(2) thin films grew on the fabric through secondary growth method. Kinetics and isotherm studies found that the adsorption of Mg(OH)(2) seeds on citric acid-treated cotton fabrics followed pseudo second-order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherm. This indicated that Mg(OH)(2) seeds adsorption was monolayer chemical adsorption driven by electric attraction between positively charged Mg(OH)(2) seeds and -COO- ions on the cotton fiber surface. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SEM characterizations of the Mg(OH)(2) thin films covered cotton fabrics found that standing flaky Mg(OH)(2) crystals formed a shell of porous but continuous network on cotton fabric surface. Owing to the Mg(OH)(2) thin film covering, the fabric had fireproof property, lower thermal conductivity and higher optical absorbance in the UV, Vis and IR regions. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.