Artificial fibre products

Artificial fibre products are made from two types of materials, organic and inorganic. Synthetic fibres can be produced using true synthetic polymers, regenerated materials and modified natural ones. Dry spinning, wet spinning and melt spinning... 

There did, however, exist some departments for the production of artificial fibres at l.G. Farben, and Mark and his group performed important service functions for these departments. Together with chemists of the fibre division they developed a theory of solution spinning, a new high strength cellulose acetate, and the copolymerized synthetic rubbers Buna-S and Buna-N. The most famous new product of Mark and his assistants was polystyrene, then used as a thermoplastic." ... 

While artificial fibres came onto the market with the 1889 invention of rayon by Hilaire de Chardonnet, and synthetic fibres emerged with the 1931 DuPont patent for Nylon, natural fibres have been around since the dawn of mankind, flax having a documented history (burial shrouds for the Egyptian pharaohs) of more than 7000 years. No matter in which climatic zone humans settled, they were able to find and utilize the fibres of native species to make products such as clothes, cloths, buildings and cordage. 

In the year 2000, according to UN data, the 15 largest manufacturing countries produced over 28.2 million tons of artificial fibres based on cellulose and synthetics. Germany was the eighth largest producer with 0.9 million tons. The world production of chemical fibres continued to increase to approximately 30 million tons by 2002. The increase was predominantly for the production of synthetic fibres, which make up approximately 93% of all artificial fibres (see Fig. 3.1). 

Gong, R.H., 2001. Application of latticed structural composite materials with three-dimensional fabrics to artificial bones. British Patent GB2361891, Moulded Fibre Product. 

After 1945, it was not unusual for chemists to cast a veil of silence over their involvement in the crimes of the Nazi regime. Deichmann ([19], p. 414) brought up this painful subject In contrast to prominent German physicists, who professed after the war that they had not been in favour of the production of the atomic bomb for moral reasons, neither Staudinger nor other chemists claimed that they were unable to synthesise an artificial fibre, an explosive, a poison gas or an antidote because they had not wanted to for moral reasons. They were honest about this. However, Staudinger (and all his fellow chemists) failed to comment on the enormous crimes that were committed with the involvement of chemists. [...] The killing of mentally disturbed Germans by carbon monoxide and of European Jews by Zyklon B (is, editor s note) not mentiOTied. ... 

In this field, Schutzenberger demonstrated the possibility of obtaining cellulose acetate, a derivative soluble in various organic solvents. His discovery seems to have been made without any application in mind but from then on, his main focus was on nitro-cellulose derivatives, in particular for artificial textile production. In that field, Schutzenberger was a scientific initiator, but not an innovator. Nevertheless, his works on cellulose acetate were useful after World War I, when new acetate fibres were developed that replaced nitrocellulose. 

Isobutyric acid is used in the production of artificial fibres, plastics and herbicides. It is also used as an intermediate in the production of cosmetics and food additives and in the pharmaceutical industry. There are industrialised chemical syntheses to produce isobutyric acid which does require fossil fuels and harmful chemicals. A biotechnological process based on renewable feedstock is more environmentally friendly and ensures in the long view a cost-effective supply of isobutyric acid. 

Leaving aside rayon and artificial silks generally, the first really effective polymeric textile fibre was nylon, discovered by the chemist Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937) in the Du Pont research laboratories in America in 1935, and first put into production in 1940, just in time to make parachutes for the wartime forces. This was the first of several major commodity polymer fibres and, together with high-density polyethylene introduced about the same time and Terylene , polyethylene tereph-thalate, introduced in 1941 (the American version is Dacron), transformed the place of polymers in the materials pantheon. 

Chemical products used in crafts include man-made mineral fibres, which are used for heat and noise insulation purposes in buildings. In addition to employees in the mineral fibre industiy and insulation installers, numerous other craftspeople (e.g. painters, bricklayers, roofers) and also some DIY users come into contact with artificial mineral fibres. 

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