Discussion on the flame retardant property of microfiber leather

At present, microfiber leather has strong abrasion resistance, acid and alkali resistance, hydrolysis resistance, color fastness and texture, it has been widely used in many fields such as sports, leisure life and industrial products, mainly including shoes, bags, sofas, car seats, gloves, clothing, soft bags and medical equipment, etc. And some fields, although the advantages are obvious, but some fields still have some special requirements for microfiber leather put forward some special requirements, such as automotive interior decoration of microfiber leather flame retardant put forward very high requirements.

What is flame retardant? As the name suggests, it is to reduce the flammability of the material, slow down the spread of flame, and can be self-extinguished soon after the flame is removed. The polyurethane on the surface of microfiber leather is itself a flammable material, plus the manufacturing process of microfiber leather uses a lot of flammable base cloths, plasticizers and other organic compounds, which are more likely to burn.

Then these flammable materials to achieve the purpose of flame retardant, it is necessary to cut off the combustion cycle consisting of combustible materials, heat sources, and oxygen, this mission is given to the flame retardant to complete, and flame retardant way accordingly: gas phase flame retardant, condensed phase flame retardant and heat absorption effect. For example, once the microfiber skin burning, flame retardants in its combustion process decomposition to absorb a lot of heat, reduce the temperature of the combustion zone, while whether out of water vapor, and dilute the oxygen concentration, thereby reducing the possibility of continuous combustion of microfiber.

Although the flame retardant is powerful, but the problem is that it plays a flame retardant at the same time also release toxic gas, causing pollution. So the composition of flame retardants has become a problem for scientists to tackle. At present, green flame retardants are the trend, such as silicon flame retardant system, it is a non-halogen, low smoke, low toxicity of flame retardants, and silicon resources are very abundant, so such flame retardants are very promising. Similarly, boron and phosphorus flame retardants also have their own very compelling advantages.

However, things have two sides, the more high-end flame retardants, the higher the cost of microfiber skin with flame retardant properties, so how to take into account the flame retardant properties and costs will be a long-term problem.