Polyimide/wool blended woven fabrics for comfortable fire protective clothing

Abstract

AbstractIn this work, to develop practical fire‐protective clothing with both good flame retardancy and comfort properties, polyimide (PI)/wool blended woven fabrics were carefully made by mixing PI and wool fibers with different mass ratios (100/0, 80/20, 50/50, and 0/100) in the carding process. Thermogravimetric analysis in both air and argon conditions indicated that wool fibers had much lower thermal stability than PI. With more PI fibers added, better thermal stability can be observed. When the mixing ratio of PI/wool was 80/20, the LOI value had a rapid increase from 23% to 31%. Meanwhile, under this ratio, the peak value of the heat release rate surprisingly reduced to a much lower degree (from 425 to 306 W/g), indicating the heat generated is dispersed along the whole burning process. Through comprehensive analysis, it is deduced that the thin molten layer of wool and PI fibers formed a confined space for the heat and volatiles, leading to lower heat release rate and higher non‐flammable gas release of the 80/20 PI/wool sample. Finally, the moisture permeability and fabric style tests demonstrated better comfort properties of the PI/wool blended fabrics.