Zur Frage der Brennbarkeit moderner Textilgewebe

Abstract

In February 1963, the clothing of a young lady in Basle caught fire and burned down with great velocity. The victim suffered fatal burns and died seven days later.
Due to unknown reasons the authorities first received the news not until ten days later, whereafter an extensive investigation immediately took place. Unfortunately, in the meantime, all traces of the burned material had been cleaned off and nobody was able to give information about origin, manufacturingmark and colour of the probably of Nylonyarn fabricated hosiery training-dress which the victim was wearing when the accident happened.
In spite of these extremely unfavourable circumstances it was possible to find in the dust of an uncleaned carpet small, black, melted and again solidified particles which – as could be shown later – were from the burned garment.
These residues have been analysed at the laboratory of the Technical Department of the Prosecutor’s Office, BaselStadt, with the following results:
The burned training-dress was made of Nylon (Polyamid) and dyed with a chrome-dye-stuff, presumably grey, darkblue or black. From the high content of silicon in the specimen it was concluded that the burned fabric had a finish of Silicone.
A great number of samples of coloured nylon-textile-fabrics was collected in Switzerland and tested for inflammability. A black coloured Nylon-yarn with a very high inflammability was found which contained all the elements present in the residues of the victim’s garment.
Our own flame-tests as well as other similar accidents mentioned in this report show that besides the Polyamide also cotton fabrics may catch fire in a way to become extremely dangerous. It is pointed out that textiles with a low inflammability can become very easily inflammable by certain dyeings and finishes.
This report contains details about the accident, the safeguarding of trace-material and the trace-evaluation as well as results of the comparative analysis. Microscopy, thin-layer-chromatography and emission-spectrography resulted in the discovery of the nylon-fabric in question.
Our results led to the issue by the Swiss authorities of new regulations for the clothing-industry. A danger-source, until now scarcely considered in Switzerland, should hereby be reduced to a minimum.