The following is an edited excerpt.
Normally, cotton fabrics are highly flammable. But when scientists tried to set fire to cotton coated with herring sperm DNA, the fabric refused to burn, the team reported in Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
“DNA can be considered as a natural flame retardant and suppressant,” said materials scientist Giulio Malucelli, whose lab at Italy’s Politecnico di Torino, Alessandria branch, tested the fire-retardant properties of DNA. “It could work also on other synthetic fabrics, or thin or thick plastic films.”
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Read the full article here: Can’t Burn This: DNA Shows Surprising Flame-Retardant Properties
