Abstract
Magnesium hydroxide (MH) has attracted considerable attention as a green flame-retardant for cellulose paper. However, conventional MH-based flame-retardant paper exhibits relatively low flame retardancy due to the low loading amount and easy agglomeration of MH. Herein, a facile method was developed to prepare MH-based flame-retardant paper with a high level of flame retardancy based on the simple and simultaneous dispersion of MgCl2 and CaO into water followed by mixing with cellulose fiber suspension before papermaking. By changing the reaction time, MH, basic magnesium chloride (BMC) or a mixture of the two can be uniformly loaded in situ onto cellulose fibers. The loaded MH, BMC or their mixture endows the cellulose paper with excellent thermal stability, flame retardancy and fire safety, especially paper loaded with a MH/BMC mixture. The excellent flame retardancy is attributed to the formation of a uniformly distributed protection layer composed of MH and BMC that acts as an endothermic flame-retardant before and after burning, which effectively blocks heat transfer and limits the release of combustible gas. This study provides a new approach for the preparation of paper with a high level of flame retardancy.
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Acknowledgements
We appreciated Professor Hong Liu from Shandong University and Mr. Ruoyu Liu from Jinan Diamond Technology Co., LTD for their discussions on how to improve the manuscript and English.
Funding
This work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (52172147 and 22006082), Shandong Province Key Research and Development Program (2021ZDSYS18), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2021MC034 and ZR2020MB128), and the Foundation of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Clean Pulp & Papermaking and Pollution Control (2019KF08), College of Light Industry and Food Engineering, Guangxi University.
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MK performed investigation and wrote original manuscript. GW assisted with the experiments. WL designed and funded the work, revised and edited the manuscript. DY edited the original manuscript. GL took part in the edition of Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4. ZS took part in data collection. HW took part in data analysis. XL partly funded the work. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Kang, M., Wang, G., Liu, W. et al. Fabrication of highly flame-retardant paper by in situ loading of magnesium hydroxide/basic magnesium chloride onto cellulose fibers. Cellulose 30, 7295–7312 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05319-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05319-0