Bio-inspired fabrication of nacre-mimetic hybrid nanocoating for eco-friendly fire-resistant precious cellulosic Chinese Xuan paper

[Display omitted] •Nacre-mimetic flame retardant Xuan paper was fabricated via LBL assembly CH/MMT.•Nacre-mimetic CH/MMT nanocoating endow Xuan paper with excellent flame retardancy.•Nacre-mimetic CH/MMT nanocoating promote Xuan paper to form compact and dense char.•Xuan paper achieves acceptable ink wetting performance with less than 10 BL CH/MMT. Nacre-mimetic materials possess excellent thermostability and barrier performance which provide novel idea for high efficient flame retardant strategy. In this study, we propose an eco-friendly approach to fabricate fire-resistant cellulosic Chinese Xuan paper by layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly chitosan (CH) and montmorillonite (MMT). The flame retardancy of Xuan paper was greatly improved after the LBL assembly coated CH/MMT, it achieved excellent flame retardancy when the CH/MMT bilayer was over 10 BL with the LOI value higher than of 35 %. The results of thermal stability of treated Xuan paper revealed the nacre-mimetic CH/MMT nanocoating on Xuan paper would promote the formation of compact and dense char which will be beneficial to inhibit the heat transmission and combustible gas diffusion. The ink wetting performance was also investigated in this study. This research would provide experimental basis for the development of fire-resisting paper using bio-mimetic method to construct nacre-mimetic organic/inorganic hybrid flame retardant system.