Fibers bicomponent, fabrication

The types of products that contain PET fibers will expand, especially in areas such as nonwoven fabrics used for disposable items, e.g. industrial fabrics for diapers, disposable wipes, filters, etc. These are products that do not require much hand labor, and are relatively well protected from low labor costs in developing countries. Bicomponent fibers based on PET will become more prevalent as the production technology becomes more widespread, in areas where the bico approach can enhance properties or economics. 

In another approach, filaments containing two polymers that do not adhere to each other are spun and then split. One may, for example, spin a bicomponent fiber of nylon that has several filaments of polyester embedded. After a fabric containing bicomponent filaments has been woven, it is treated to split the components, thus converting the original filament to several smaller filaments. Deniers of the order of 0.1 can be achieved by this ingenious method. In the last method, instead of... 

The first commercial microfibers were produced in Japan [76] in the 1970s and were made by spinning a bicomponent fiber with polyester fibrils dispersed in a matrix polymer in the islands in a sea configuration [77]. This was drawn into fibers and processed into fabric and finally the matrix polymer was dissolved, leaving tiny polyester fibrils. These were processed into a synthetic suede material marketed as Ultrasuede. The polyester fibrils were extremely fine, less than 1 pm in diameter. The process was expensive, but the product was successful. At the same time, numerous variations on this theme later followed. One ingenious idea by Sato and coworkers used was a blend of PET in a PET-sulfoisophthalate copolymer rich in SOsNa groups, which dissolved readily in aqueous base leaving the unaffected PET. 

Flexural rigidity and absorption properties of the cotton/(Eastar/PP) nonwovens were also studied. Results show that the nonwovens have good flexural rigidity and absorbency, which indicate that the nonwoven materials may be used for medical and sanitary applications. However, one has to remember that PP component in the bicomponent fiber is not biodegradable this puts this fabric in the category of many other cotton/binder nonwovens that may have PP or PET as binder fibers. The results obtained from these... 

The open hoUow fiber shape shown ia Figure 13 is made by a unique process requiring bicomponent yam technology (145). A yam is spun with a water-soluble copolyester core and nylon sheath where the core is dissolved out with an alkaH treatment ia fabric dyeiag. 

M.W. Olson G.H- Brice, Bicomponent and Biconstituent Fibers in Ballistic Fabric for Personnel Armor , Rept No USA-NLabs, C/-PLSEL-TR-71-48CE, TS-173, Contract DAA17-70-C-0032, Uniroyal Inc, Wayne (1971)... 

Chu and co-workers at Cornell investigated the combination of PGA and Dacron. They produced knitted fabric grafts composed of PGA and Dacron fibers blended at various compositional ratios. They studied the properties of these bicomponent fabrics in vitro. Their major finding was the achievement of increasing water porosity over time without significant losses in the structural integrity and strength of the specimens. 

---