Journal of Textile Science & Engineering

Producing Fire Retardant Cotton Fabric Using Chicken Eggshell

Abstract

Granch Berhe Tseghai, Birhane Tekle Berhe and Yeshi Tadesse Wakjira

Cotton has poor fire retardance characteristics. As a result, the textile material is not recommended in areas of fire risks though it has high comfort factor that make preferable for wearing purpose; therefore, imparting fire retardance is must to cotton. This research focuses on producing fire retardant cotton fabric using chicken eggshell to replace synthetic fire-retardant chemicals. Chicken eggshell contains fire-retardant mineral such as calcium carbonate, phosphorous, nitrous, potassium and zinc. Imparting fire retardance using synthetic chemicals has many limitations; toxicity, environmental hazards, non-biodegradable, non-renewable source and cost. On the other side chicken eggshell being bio-product has not any side effects since it occurs in nature abundantly. In most cases the chicken eggshell is removed after usage or hatching causing a big environmental pollution in appearance as well as in odour. Conversion of such wastes to treasure has a dual benefit in preventing cotton from burning extension and using the eggshell wastes for valuable treatment process. Treated fabric using chicken eggshell showed low flammability than untreated. In addition, the treated fabric formed ash and char, whereas untreated fabric produced only ash and got totally burn. The fire propagations were 40 and 1.4 mm per second for untreated and treated fabrics respectively.