ABSTRACT
Previous approaches to suppressing fire hazards are concentrated on brominated ï¬ame retardants (BFRs) or phosphorus ï¬ame retardants (PFRs). However, their chemical hazards to health and environment have not been able to be ignored currently. It is quite urgent to propose a durable and environmentally-friendly fire-safe strategy, which can eliminate migration, release, and environmental hazards of traditional flame retardants during their use, disposal, and recycling. Herein, we design a fire-responsive molecule (FRM) only containing C, H, and O elements based on full-life-cycle consideration and achieve fire safety via the synergy of specifically binding aliphatic fragments and aromatized charring in combustion. The resulting polymer shows low fire hazard with excellent self-extinguish, low organic volatiles/heat/smoke release, and good comprehensive performance. This polymer can be fabricated to fibres with potential applications for textiles, and electronics, etc. Therefore, we achieve a durable fire-safe strategy without flame-retardant chemicals hazard. This approach can fundamentally eliminate the potential chemical hazards associated with the introduction of halogen or phosphorus flame retardants and give a new vision about solving the "flame retardant chemical hazard issues" that are debated, tracked, and evaluated for several decades.