BRITISH troops could soon be wearing new protective clothing invented by researchers at the Bolton Institute.

Staff from the institute, Salford University and the University of Sheffield have come together to try to find a new way of making synthetic textiles fire-resistant.

The three-year project is being funded by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in a £520,000 combined grant package.

Researchers aim to develop new synthetic materials which can be made into fire-resistant fibres.

Synthetic fibres available now, such as nylon and polyesters, are unstable when heated because they are thermoplastics. This means, before they ignite, they begin to shrink and even melt, causing the textile to stick to surfaces it touches, including human skin.

Natural fibres, such as cotton, char when burning -- a characteristic missing from synthetic fibres. Finding a way of introducing charring properties to synthetic fibres would reduce burning under ignition.

So the researchers aim to create a new form of man-made textiles which are "nanocomposite" -- because such materials char rather than melt, and so would be more fire-resistant.

The research team includes of Bolton Institute's textiles group, based at its new Centre for Materials Research and Innovation, as well as leading investigators from Sheffield University's Polymer Centre and members of Salford's Fire Chemistry Research group. Dr Baljinder Kandola, Principal Investigator for Bolton Institute, said: "The results of this project could have major, positive implications for the UK's textiles industry.

"Previous research at Bolton Institute leads us to believe this project could be a major step forward in the development of synthetic materials with far better fire-retardant properties than those available today.

She added: "The interest of the MoD is significant here, in that the needs of the modern battlefield demand increasingly superior performance properties if service personnel are to be adequately protected.

"Spin-offs into the commercial sector will benefit civil emergency and industrial personnel working in hazardous conditions."