Asahi wet spinning process

FIGURE 2.38 A simplified sketch of the Asahi wet spinning process for polyacrylonitrile fiber. 

Asahi s innovations have done much to transform the cuprammonium process from an uneconomic competitor for viscose and synthetics into the fastest wet-spinning system in the world. They now cl aim it to be competitive both economically and environmentally with the viscose filament process. 

The Asahi process for wet-spinning the copolymer involves water dilution at below 0°C of a solution of the copolymer in aqueous 68 wt% nitric acid (the azeotropic composition). The potential for slow self heating and decomposition have been investigated experimentally with variations in several parameters in a Sikarex safety calorimeter. At 20% polymer content, the slow self heating starts even at ambient temperature, and later involves evolution of 30 mol of uncondensable gas per kg of copolymer with comcommittant boiling of the nitric acid. A 2 step mechanism has been proposed. 

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