Fabrication of a superhydrophobic and flame-retardant cotton fabric using a DNA-based coating

Flame-retardant and superhydrophobic coatings over cotton fabric are fabricated by solution immersion method using green-based flame retardants, i.e. DNA, silver nitrate and octadecyltriethoxysilane are used to get flame-retardant cotton with superhydrophobic nature. The results of this work showed that the as-prepared cotton fabric with a maximal contact angle of 157° was obtained and surfaces before and after were characterised by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and FT-IR studies. Some typical flame tests and TGA/DTG studies were done to evaluate the flame retardant property and thermal stability of the coated cotton samples. These results demonstrated that solution immersion strategy is a relatively simple and convenient method to fabricate superhydrophobic and flame-retardant cotton fabric. Graphical abstract