Cooling fibers

In a Pasteur pipette loosely place a very small piece of cotton followed by 2.5 g of alumina. Add to the top of the pipette 1.5 mL of styrene and collect 1 mL in a disposable 10 x 75-mm test tube. Add to the tube 50 mg of benzoyl peroxide and a thermometer and heat the tube over a hot sand bath. When the temperature reaches about 135°C polymerization begins and, since it is an exothermic process, the temperature rises. Keep the reaction under control by cautious heating. The temperature rises, perhaps to 180°C, well above the boiling point of styrene (145°C) the viscosity also increases. Pull the thermometer from the melt from time to time to form fibers when a cool fiber is found to be brittle remove the thermometer. A boiling stick can be added to the tube and the polymer allowed to cool. It can then be removed from the tube or the tube can be broken from the polymer. Should the polymer be sticky the polymerization can be completed in an oven overnight at a temperature of about 85°C. 

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Aqueous media, such as emulsion, suspension, and dispersion polymerization, are by far the most widely used in the acryUc fiber industry. Water acts as a convenient heat-transfer and cooling medium and the polymer is easily recovered by filtration or centrifugation. Fiber producers that use aqueous solutions of thiocyanate or zinc chloride as the solvent for the polymer have an additional benefit. In such cases the reaction medium can be converted directiy to dope to save the costs of polymer recovery. Aqueous emulsions are less common. This type of process is used primarily for modacryUc compositions, such as Dynel. Even in such processes the emulsifier is used at very low levels, giving a polymerization medium with characteristics of both a suspension and a tme emulsion. 

Extrusion Processes. Polymer solutions are converted into fibers by extmsion. The dry-extmsion process, also called dry spinning, is primarily used for acetate and triacetate. In this operation, a solution of polymer in a volatile solvent is forced through a number of parallel orifices (spinneret) into a cabinet of warm air the fibers are formed by evaporation of the solvent. In wet extmsion, a polymer solution is forced through a spinneret into a Hquid that coagulates the filaments and removes the solvent. In melt extmsion, molten polymer is forced through a multihole die (pack) into air, which cools the strands into filaments. 

Texturing. The final step in olefin fiber production is texturing the method depends primarily on the appHcation. For carpet and upholstery, the fiber is usually bulked, a procedure in which fiber is deformed by hot air or steam jet turbulence in a no22le and deposited on a moving screen to cool. The fiber takes on a three-dimensional crimp that aids in developing bulk and coverage in the final fabric. Stuffer box crimping, a process in which heated tow is overfed into a restricted oudet box, imparts a two-dimensional sawtooth crimp commonly found in olefin staple used in carded nonwovens and upholstery yams. 

Terephthahc acid (TA) or dimethyl terephthalate [120-61 -6] (DMT) reacts with ethyleae glycol (2G) to form bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate [959-26-2] (BHET) which is coadeasatioa polymerized to PET with the elimination of 2G. Moltea polymer is extmded through a die (spinneret) forming filaments that are solidified by air cooling. Combinations of stress, strain, and thermal treatments are appHed to the filaments to orient and crystallize the molecular chains. These steps develop the fiber properties required for specific uses. The two general physical forms of PET fibers are continuous filament and cut staple. 

Flow processes iaside the spinneret are governed by shear viscosity and shear rate. PET is a non-Newtonian elastic fluid. Spinning filament tension and molecular orientation depend on polymer temperature and viscosity, spinneret capillary diameter and length, spin speed, rate of filament cooling, inertia, and air drag (69,70). These variables combine to attenuate the fiber and orient and sometimes crystallize the molecular chains (71). 

On the other hand, water-soluble PVA fibers are available on the market. They are stable in cool water but shrink in warm water and dissolve at 40 to 90°C. The dissolution temperature is controlled by the degree of polymerization and hydrolysis of PVA, he at-treatment conditions after spinning, etc. 

Antimony Oxide as a Primary Flame Retardant. Antimony oxide behaves as a condensed-phase flame retardant in cellulosic materials (2). It can be appHed by impregnating a fabric with a soluble antimony salt followed by a second treatment that precipitates antimony oxide in the fibers. When the treated fabric is exposed to a flame, the oxide reacts with the hydroxyl groups of the cellulose (qv) causing them to decompose endothermically. The decomposition products, water and char, cool the flame reactions while slowing the production and volatilization of flammable decomposition products (see Flaa retardants for textiles). 

HoUow-fiber fabrication methods can be divided into two classes (61). The most common is solution spinning, in which a 20—30% polymer solution is extmded and precipitated into a bath of a nonsolvent, generally water. Solution spinning allows fibers with the asymmetric Loeb-Soufirajan stmcture to be made. An alternative technique is melt spinning, in which a hot polymer melt is extmded from an appropriate die and is then cooled and sohdified in air or a quench tank. Melt-spun fibers are usually relatively dense and have lower fluxes than solution-spun fibers, but because the fiber can be stretched after it leaves the die, very fine fibers can be made. Melt spinning can also be used with polymers such as poly(trimethylpentene), which are not soluble in convenient solvents and are difficult to form by wet spinning. 

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