Sulfar fibers

Sulfar fibers are extruded from polyphenylene sulfide) or PPS by the melt-spinning process. The first PPS polymer was made in 1897 by the Friedel-Crafts reaction of sulfur and benzene. Researchers at Dow Chemical, in the early 1950s, succeeded in producing high-molecular weight linear PPS by means of the Ullmann condensation of alkali metal salts of p-bromothiophenol. 

Because the chemical stmcture of poly(phenylene sulfide) [9016-75-5] (PPS) does not fall into any of the standard polymer classes, the Federal Trade Commission granted the fiber the new generic name of Sulfar. The fiber has excellent chemical and high temperature performance properties (see... 

Fiber. High molecular weight linear PPS is weU-suited for fiber applications. The inherent properties of PPS (flame resistance, chemical resistance, and thermal stability) make PPS fiber highly desirable ia textile applications (128). PPS fiber has been designated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission as a new generic class of materials called sulfar. Typical fiber properties are listed ia Table 7 (see High performance fibers). 

Several other fibrous materials have been produced, but they are regarded as fibers with special performance characteristics, used either in limited textile or in specialized industrial applications. Some of these worth noting are Spandex (1959), Aramid (1961), polybenzimidazole (PBI) (1983), and Sulfar (1983). 

In 1973, Phillips Petroleum Company introduced linear and branched products under the trade name Ryton by reacting 1,4-dichlorobezene with sodium sulfide in a dipolar aprotic solvent. In 1983, the same company succeeded in stable melt-spinning of PPS. In 1986, the Federal Trade Commission gave the fiber the generic name Sulfar, defined as a manufactured fiber in... 

Sulfar "A manufactured fiber in which the fiber-forming substance is a long chain synthetic polysulfide in which at least 85% of the sulfide (—S—) linkages are attached directly to two (2) aromatic rings." ... 

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