Ｔｈｅ Ｎｏｎ－ｆｌａｍｍａｂｌｅ Ｓｋｉｎ ｏｆ Ｏｕｒ Ｔｅｘｔｉｌｅｓ

Do you know that even our curtains and table clothes haveskins? They might be invisible to our naked eyes， howeverthey do exist， and also， protect us.

As technology develops， textileis no longer simply made from，cotton， silk or wool. It hasno longer a single layer， neither. It usuallycontains multiple layers to make it appearto be more beautiful， softer， and also， notto catch to fire easily. Textile with multiplelayers are very common in home textiles，such as curtain， sofa， table clothes， carpet， andthe wall clothes applied on planes and otherspecial places. Scientists name this skin as\"coating\" of the textiles.

Generally speaking， coating technology means applyinga layer of bond on the basic textile， and then a very thinmembrane or other materials are applied to join the two partstogether as a complex textile. In a more strict way， it's aprocess that joins the coating material with the surface of basictextile. How to join them depends on the specific demand ofproducts and varies according to different coating materials.

There are about 15 kinds of coating materials， forexample， a very common one is called PA Coating (AcrylicAcid)， which can give the texile a feel of more drapability.And PA Silver Glue Coating enables the textile to shut downmore lights and also radiation， so it is often applied in makingcurtains， tents and apparels.

And our hero this time also belongs to these 15 kinds， whohas a long name: Foam coating with flame retardant propertyfor heavy fabric.

In this technology， bromine， (a chemical which is heavy，volatile， corrosive， reddish-brown， nonmetallic liquid element，having a highly irritating vapor) joined with other flame retardantmaterials， froths at certain froth rate after a thorough churning up.

When we are going to \"put on\" the coating on the textiles，the bubbles inside the coating would break under the pressurefrom coating knives， and filter into the textile. After certainspeed and temperature of drying， usually140~160 centigrade， the two parts can jointogether very steadily. Textiles with thiscoating can stay soft and breath free. Theflame and fire retardant rate of textiles withthis coating meet the demand of InternationalStandard BS5852.

In China， coating technology is notsomething new in the fields such as latex andpaper making. However it is something new intextile industry. For a long time China doesn't have enough coating textiles to meet the growing needs， andimports more than two million square meters of coating textilesfrom Japan， North Korea and Taiwan. Factories and researchinstitutes are very active in researching and experimentssince the industry realizes the importance of this market. Thetechnology we mentioned above is developed by ShanghaiZhongDa Science and Technology Development Co. Ltd.

This new technology is awarded as the second prize ofCNTAC Science and Technology Prize by the China NationalTextile and Apparel Council in 2005.

Traditionally， it's very difficult to get the heavy fabricssuch as carpet dressed. The coating material is very difficultto filter into the heavy fabrics. This Foam coating with flameretardant for heavy fabric technology makes this problemsolved by applying the foams as we mentioned above， andso the coating material can combine with the heavy fabricsvery steadily. The materials making the coating are also cheapand easy to get， and it brings down the cost: in the past thefactories need to import the materials to make the coating andthe final product would feel very hard.

This technology is still new and hasn't been widelypracticed in the market. Now the technology is mainly appliedin producing baby handcarts by Haohaier Group， Jiangsu， andmost of the products are exported to overseas markets.