CHEMISTY OF TEXTILE FIBERS AND THEIR PROPERTIES

Textile and Clothing Technology. @ BCCT Rathmalana, Sri Lanka.

Nalaka Sampath
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Introduction
In textile industry, chemical science is taken a huge part of the producing of fibres, yarns and other fields like chemical finishing. In the textile industry, from fibres to final dress, chemistry applications are used in various ways as they needed. In this section mostly discus about the application of the chemical science on textile fibres. And how they produce out. How to make synthetic fibres and regenerated fibres and how they used to make a fine yarn are the things we discus here.

What is a polymer?
The polymer is large molecule, made out from one repeating unit, called monomer. The monomer is like a link in a chain. Its repeating along the polymer like in a chain. These monomers connected to each other monomers by a chemical bond, called covalent bonds.

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Contend

Classification fibre... ...01

1. Regenerated fibres.......02 1) protein fibres.02 a) milk fibres...02 b) wool fibres..03
02) Cellulose fibre..........04 a) Cellulose acetate fibre....04 b) Art silk..04 d) Bamboo...04 e) Lyocell......04 f) Rayon.......04

02. synthetic fibres...06 01) Addition polymerization..07 02) Condensation polymerization....................................................08

Synthetic fibre 02..10

a) Nylon 6-6....11 b) Nylon 6-10..12 c) Aramid...................................................................................13 d) Polyacrylonitrile...14 f) Olefin.....15

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Classification of textile fibres. Under the textile fibre, the applications of chemical science can be discussed in two ways. 1. Regenerated fibre.;In the textile industry regenerated fibres are made out for create fine fibres from protein and cellulose.

2. Synthetic fibre.;This fibre format is made from polymer by a process called polymerization. Polymers are formed by hydro carbonates and they used to produce filaments for manufacture the yarns.

These two classification will be discussed due course.

01. Regenerated fibre

Regenerated fibre can divide in to two sections. 1. Protein fibers. 2. Cellulose fibres.

1. Protein fibres.

a. Milk fibre. The raw material of this fiber production is naturally available milk. The protein spinning fluid is made out from new bio-engineering technology to make it suitable for wet spinning process. The fabrics are made from this type of fibres are popular as healthy for skin and comfortable to wear. These fibres can be spun purely or blend with other fibre type like silk.

Process of milk fibre production.

b. Wool fibre Most of the animal fibers are protein fibers. Such as silk and wool. In this production of fiber forming, there should be a chemical treat to do this better. Some of the chemical reactions take place during the process of forming pure fibres. When we are using wool to make a yarn we have to clean them. In a wool mill there are so many chemicals added to clean the wools. First it uses sodium carbonate as a soap to wash out greases. Then it removes vegetable matters by using sulfuric acid.

Type of fibres

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Cellulose fibres.

Naturally available cellulose cannot be used to form a fibre. There is process called regenerating to make them used in industry. Actually regenerating is anther type of polymerizing. To do this task first its made dissolving pulp. This is also known as dissolving cellulose. This pulp is wood pulp which contains high concentration of cellulose. Concentration of the cellulose in this pulp is depended on the purpose of the fibre type which is going to make out.
The cellulose is dissolved in an organic solvent and processed to regenerate the cellulose fibres in different forms. The 90-92 % cellulose content sulfite pulps are used mostly to make textiles like rayon and cellophane. The 96-% cellulose content sulfate pulps are used to make rayon yarn for industrial products.

Cellulose polymer.

Cellulose monomer.

When cellulose is regenerated there would be many types cellulose fibres. a) Cellulose acetate b) Art silk c) Bamboo d) Lyocell e) Rayon

a) Cellulose acetate This fiber format is the acetate ester of the cellulose. Cellulose acetate is used as a film based on photography

b) Art silk Art silk is known as artificial silk also. The first successful artificial silks were developed in the 1890s of cellulose fiber and marketed as art silk. c) Bamboo This is also a cellulose fibre extracted from natural bamboo. The pulp which is used to make fibres is made out of bamboo plants. The process to make viscose or rayon bre from bamboo is the same process used to produce viscose/rayon from any other plant source. d) Lyocell Lyocell is a trade name for the fibres made from dissolving pulp of eucalyptus trees. The wood pulp is dissolved in N-methylmorpholine N-oxide, creating a solution called "dope," which is then pushed through a spinneret to form the individual fibres. e) Rayon Rayon is known by the names viscose rayon and art silk in the textile industry. Rayon is made out from cellulose after it is treated with carbon disulfide and sodium hydroxide. So it can be named as semi synthetic fibre.

The formation of rayon polymer.

02. Synthetic fibres.

Synthetic fibres are man made fibres, which are entirely made out from chemical resources such as petroleum, coal.. act. Synthetic fibres are continuous filaments. In a synthetic fibre there is polymer which its structure is based on. These polymers are mostly hydro-carbonated polymers. To form a polymer, there is one repeating unit. This repeating unit is may made out from one or more molecule. The polymer type which is finally taken out from process called polymerization, is depended on the type of it is polymerized and how many molecules are in a monomer.

There is two type of polymerizing and they discus below. i) Addition polymerization ii) Step-growth polymerization.

Addition polymerization:An addition reaction takes place during the addition polymerizing. There is many monomers bond together via rearrangement of bonds to make this kind of polymers. Simply it can be described as monomers double or triple bonds are opened up to form a continuous chain of carbon. The general reaction can be represented as :
catalyst

nR-C=C-R'

R R' | | -(- C - C -)n-

Ex; Propylene polymerization.

Ethylene polymerization.

Vinyl chloride polymerization.

Condensation polymerization. There are two types of polymerizing processes under this classification. Condensation and step-growth polymerization. Even though these polymerizing concepts are difference, they take into a one classification because of condensation polymerizations mechanism corresponds to step-growth polymerization. Step-growth polymerization typically takes place between monomers containing functional groups that react in high yield to form new functionalities. When two monomers react to form a polymer, there is small molecules are eliminated during the reaction, such as water molecule.

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Synthetic fibres.
Synthetic fibres are totally made out of chemical compounds known as polymers. These polymers polymerizing concepts are mainly affected to the fibre type which its going to produce out. (The polymerizing types have discussed above) Synthetic fibres account for about half of all fibre usage, with applications in every field of fibre and textile technology.

In this section mainly discus about the synthetic textile fibres, such as; a) b) c) d) e) Nylon 6-6. Nylon 6-10. Aramid. Polyacrylonitrile. Olefin.

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a) Nylon 6-6. These types of fibres are produced by using amide groups. These amide groups are polymerized and they called as polyamide.

There many types of fibres made out from polyamide. Most known polyamide fibre is nylon. Nylon also has many of varieties. We discus here about nylon 6-6. As its name there are 12 carbon atoms given by hexamethylenediamine and adipic acid, to produce nylon 6-6. These two molecules are combined with water in a reactor, then its formed nylon salt. After removing excess water its sent to the reaction vessel to produce a continues nylon filament. Molten nylon 6-6 goes through a process called spinning to produce those filaments. Then its cooled.

Properties of nylon 6-6.; Much greater stiffness and tensile strength. Lower water absorption. Improved heat distortion temperature.

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b) Nylon 6-10 This type also based on polyamide. (It has described above) Nylon 6-10 is formed at the interface between the two solutions. These two solutions are 1,6-diaminohexane and sebacoyl chloride.

The spinning process is as same as the spinning process of nylon 6-6. its used melt spinning method for this task.

Properties of nylon 6-10 Lower brittle temperature than Nylon 6 or Nylon 6-6. Lower water absorption than Nylon 6 or Nylon 6-6 (4% at saturation). Stronger than Nylon 11, Nylon 12 or Nylon 6-12.

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c)

Aramid.

Aramid fibre is a product of Aramid polymers. Those are prepared by the reaction between an amine group and a carboxylic acid halide group. They are used in aerospace, military applications and many technical applications because of their high strength. Most known aramids are Kevlar and Conex.

Kevlar This is a trade mark of the synthetic fibre, para-aramid. During the production process of Kevlar, condensation reaction takes place alone the process. Terephthaloyl chloride and 1,4-phenylene-diamine are the chemicals used chemicals to produce this.

Properties of Aramid. Usually yellow in appearance Low density High strength Good impact resistance Good chemical resistance Good resistance to thermal degradation Some grades of aramid fibre can degrade when exposed to
ultraviolet light

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d) polyacrylonitrile. Polyacrylonitrile can be found in two types o fibres. Homopolyacrylonitrile and co-polyacrylonitrile. These types of fibres are used in various ways according to their qualities. Copolymer of polyacrylonitrile fibres are mostly used to make socks and sweaters(in knitted fabrics), as well as outdoor products such as tents and other things. Most known trade name for co-polyacrylonitrile is Orlon. Homopolymers of polyacrylonitrile fibers is used to hot gas filtration systems, outdoor tents, and for yachts.

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e) Olefin fiber . This fibre is made from alkenes. There are two type of olefin fibres which is depended on its polymerization process. Polyethylene and polypropylene. In textile industry, there is various usage of this kind of fibres such as in vehicle interiors, clothing and other fields like rope manufacturing. Polyethylene for ropes. When producing of olefin fibres Polymerization of propylene and ethylene gases, controlled with special catalysts.

Properties of olefin

Low dielectric loss Low water absorption Excellent dimensional stability High heat resistance Good chemical resistance

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