Japanese fiber production

Approximately two-thirds of capacity are located in Japan, China, and Taiwan, with the remainder in the United States and Europe. Approximately 50,000 t of the Japanese and alarge portion of the Chinese production is captively consumed for fiber production. The principal PVA producers in the world (capacity >30,000 t/yr) are shown in Table 5. 

Several Japanese and European companies have begun the production of PPS, some with a U.S. partner. The new decade should see the introduction of a number of new fibers and fiber products based on the PPS polymer. 

Reel chop from the field can come in 1" to 4" lengths with bulk densities of 2 to 4 Lb/CP (32-64 Kg/ia ). For straws we found Japanese feed markets required 2" to 3" lengths (3 Lb/CP, 10 HP Hr/Ton) but domestic feed, fuel and fiber products could be made using a 3/8" screen (5 Lb/CP - 20 HP/Ton/Hr). Hammermills are better than shredders. Tub grinders have low efficiency and are best for mixing. Cornstalks, husks and leaves can be cubed readily using a 3/4"-1 " screen. 

China s textile raw material needs by 1985 will amount to at least 4.26 million M.T. In synthetics, China is committed to developing polyester fibers as its primary manufacture, with output for 1985 targeted at 1.5 MMT (equivalent to the 1979 Japanese level of synthetic production. The present Chinese output is only 326,000 M.T.) Limited quantities of nylon, polypropylene, vinylon, acrylic and polyester fibers are already produced. 

Similarly, PZ pitch as precursor for HPCF was replaced by other mesophase pitches (12). At this point in time, as is well-known, Singer (13) and Lewis (14) of the Union Carbide Corporation developed similar methods. Mesophase carbon fiber progressed more rapidly in the USA than in Japan because Japanese defense and aerospace needs were less demanding. Recently, however, the drive toward higher-added-value products from the heavy fractions of coal and petroleum has intensified, and pitch-based carbon fibers, including HPCF, are now the subjects of extensive investigation in many Japanese laboratories. 

Acrylamide with a demand of 200,000 tons year" is one of the most important commodities in the world. It is used for the preparation of coagulators, soil conditioners, stock additives for paper treatment, and in leather and textile industry as a component of synthetic fibers. Conventional chemical synthesis involving hydration of acrylonitrile with the use of copper salts as a catalyst has some disadvantages rate of acrylic acid formation higher than acrylamide, by-products formation and polymerization, and high-energy inputs. To overcome these limits since 1985, the Japanese company Nitto Chemical Industry developed a biocatalyzed process to synthesize... 

Shiokawa, M. Matsumoto, T. Production of Pitch-based Carbon Fiber. Japanese Patent 12,82,349, 1989. 

Titanium has gained worldwide importance in the food industry. Potassium tita-nate fibers were used as a filter aid for the production of Japanese sake (Ogino etal. 1989) and as paints for beverage cans in Japan (Osumi 1993). The high reflectivity of titanium oxide to both infrared and ultraviolet radiation makes it suitable for use in... 

Aramid films have been in development since the late 1990s by several Japanese companies including Toray, Teijin, and Asahi. As with fibers, aramid solutions can be extruded through flat dies to form films. The conventional wet process can be employed to produce unidirectional and bi-oriented films from isotropic aramid solutions. Production of films from anisotropic solutions requires unique processes as shown by the example of PPTA film. 

Kitano, T. Nagatsuka, Y. Lee, M Kimijima, K Oyanagi, Y. (1994). A Method for the Production of Randomly Oriented Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites and Their Mechanical Properties. Seikei-Kakou (the Journal of Japanese Society of Polymer Processing, in Japanese), Vol.6, No.l2, pp. 904-915 ISSN 0915-4027... 

S. Tamura, M. Mori, and S. Saito, Compositions for the production of high-strength glass fiber, Japanese Patent, 8[1996]-231-240, September 10,1996. 

Independent of the Japanese work, W. Watt, W. Johnson and L.N. Phillips (Figure 3.3) of the Royal Aircraft EstabUshment at Farnborough (RAE) started work in 1963 on the production of carbon fiber from a PAN precursor. Courtaulds were invited to submit a... 

The chemistry is similar to that of powder production. The basic precursor is usually polycarbosilane which is a pale-yellow solid with a melting point of 225 C. A typical process flowchart is shown,in Fig. 14.4. The chemical solution is partially thickened by polymerization or by additives and spun directly into fibers. The resulting green fibers are dried and pyrolized.I lt l These fibers are produced commercially by Nippon Carbon Co. and distributed in the US under the trade name of Nicalon by Dow Coming Corp., Midland MI. They are also produced by another Japanese firm, UBE Industries under the tradename of Tyrarmo. 

Polypropylene (PP) fibers contain, according to ISO 2076, minimally an 85% portion of macromolecular polypropylene chains and maximally 15% of another fiber-forming polymer, the content of nonfiber-forming substance being unlimited. Of the stereoregular isomers, only isotactic PP is used for fiber preparation. Nowadays, new types of PP (s)mdio-tactic, metallocene based) have been developed for fiber and film production. The first industrial company that launched the production of PP fibers was Montecatini Co. (1959), then after 1960 l.C.l., Celanese, Hercules, etc. Japanese companies started the production of bicomponent fibers. Ciurently, the global production amounts to 4200 kt of PP fibers in wide assortment of textile, industrial and special typ>es. Table 1 presents a survey of the world production of PP fibers in 1992-1995. 

In spite of the great number (> 200) of publications on wood fiber-PP (WF-PP) composites in the last two decades [1], not too many details of the commercially produced WF-PP products have been released. On the other hand, the growing number of relevant patents (actually more than 60) show the industrial potential of such products, elaborated in most case by big, multinational companies, such as BASF, Hoechst, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), DuPont, SOLVAY, Mitsubishi, Ford Motor Co. and others. It is clear from the applications of WF-PP composites in the American, European and Japanese automobile industry, that their production in the late 1990s surpassed 100000 tons/year [1]. 

Japanese application almost exclusively. Nylon monofilaments blended with PVDF have high knot strength and improved surface smoothness (98). Blends with polyethylene fibers (99) Developing market for PVDF in competition with established fluoroelastomer products... 

Other companies which have developed carbon fibers from mesophase pitch include Exxon Enterprises (who sold their carbon fiber technology to DuPont) and many Japanese companies. The Exxon work was based on extensive research at Rennselaer Polytechnic institute by Riggs and Diefendorf [32]. No commercial product, other than Union Carbide s, has appeared on the market except in sample quantities. However, based on technology developed by the Government industrial Research Institute, Kyushu, Japan, fourteen Japanese companies are trying to develop products of similar nature [331. 

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