Fiber processing spinning, reaction

Fiber processing, spinning, reaction A liquid polymer is extruded through a spinneret plate and encounters a chain extending cross-linking component producing a filament. 

An important application of formation of a solid from a sphere is the spinning of solid fibers from liquids. These are usually formed by forcing the liquid through a circular orifice, beyond which it solidifies. Describe the processes and reactions for forming the following fibers ... 

Synthetic Fiber and Plastics Industries. In the synthetic fibers and plastics industries, the substrate itself serves as the solvent, and the whitener is not appHed from solutions as in textiles. Table 6 Hsts the types of FWAs used in the synthetic fibers and plastic industries. In the case of synthetic fibers, such as polyamide and polyester produced by the melt-spinning process, FWAs can be added at the start or during the course of polymerization or polycondensation. However, FWAs can also be powdered onto the polymer chips prior to spinning. The above types of appHcation place severe thermal and chemical demands on FWAs. They must not interfere with the polymerization reaction and must remain stable under spinning conditions. 

Aromatic polyesters had been successfully synthesized from the reaction of ethylene glycol and various aromatic diacids but commercialization awaited a ready inexpensive source of aromatic diacides. An inexpensive process was discovered for the separation of the various xylene isomers by crystallization. The availability of inexpensive xylene isomers allowed the formation of terephthalic acid through the air oxidation of the p-xylene isomer. DuPont produced polyester fibers from melt spinning in 1953, but it was not until the 1970s that these fibers became commercially available. 

The major textiles before the 1920s were wool (animal hair), cotton (a seed pod), and silk (a protein used for making cocoons). The silk spider also had a clever device in its abdomen for expelling a gel in a sac through a spinneret where reactions with air made a solid fiber with a uniform cross section. DuPont took this idea in spinning hydrolyzed cellulose into rayon fibers and scaling-the process up far beyond the needs of spiders. 

Much more research has been carried out with polymers in which the coordinated metal atom is part of the chain backbone. Typically, the metal atoms are copper, nickel, and cobalt. Oxygen atoms or carbon atoms adjacent to the metal atom provide the electrons required for the coordinate bond.30 Polymers of this type are often rather intractable, for a variety of reasons. Specifically, insolubility can be a problem for species with moderate molecular weights. Also, coordination between chains can cause aggregation, and ligand-exchange reactions with small molecules such as solvents can cause chain scission. However, in some favorable cases, the intramolecular coordination is sufficiently strong for the polymer to be processed by the usual techniques such as spinning into fibers or extrusion into films.30... 

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