Plastics and Synthetic Fibers

Throughout human history a limited number of fibers provided the fabric used for clothing and other materials—wool, leather, cotton, flax, and silk. As early as 1664, Robert Hooke speculated that production of artificial silk was possible, but it took another two hundred years before synthetic fibers were produced. The production of synthetic fibers took place in two stages. The first stage, started in the last decades of the nineteenth century, involved chemical formulations employing cellulose as a raw material. Because the cellulose used in these fibers came from cotton or wood, the fibers 

Cellulose acetate is another form of cellulose that was produced in the late 1800s. 

The basic cellulose unit contains three hydroxyl groups. The triester cellulose triacetate forms when cellulose is reacted with glacial acetic acid. Hydrolysis removes some of the acetate groups to form a secondary ester, which averages about 2.4 acetyl groups per unit rather than three. The secondary ester is then dissolved in acetone and the solution ejected through a spinneret to form fibers. Cellulose acetate processed in this manner is referred to as acetate rayon, but it may be more commonly known by its trade name Celanese. 

The development of plastics accompanied synthetic fibers. The first synthetic plastic with the trade name Celluloid was made in 1870 from a form of nitrocellulose called pyroxylin, the same substance used to produce the first rayon. Celluloid was developed in part to meet the demand for expensive billiard balls, which at the end of the nineteenth century were produced from ivory obtained from elephant tusks. John Wesley Hyatt (1837-1920) combined pyroxylin with ether and alcohol to produce a hard substance called collodion. Hyatt s collodion, like Bernigaut s original rayon, was unstable and potentially explosive. He solved this problem by adding camphor to the collodion to produce a stable hard plastic he called Celluloid. 

The adipic acid used to produce nylon is the product of several reactions starting with benzene. The adipic acid in turn is used to produce hexamethylenediamine. 

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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. 

Table 6. Fluorescent Whitening Agents Used in the Synthetic Fibers and Plastics Industries...

C04-0075. Acrylonitrile is an important building block for synthetic fibers and plastics. Over 1.4 billion kilograms of acrylonitrile are produced in the United States each year. The compound is synthesized from propene in the following reaction ... 

The great increase in production of synthetic fibers and plastics has given a boost to numerous other petrochemicals, a large number of which will be produced by the alkylation of an aromatic and olefins. The most... 

A. Wieber, C. Eckhardt Mass Whitening of Synthetic Fibers and Plastics , Ciba-Geigy Rev. 1973, no. 1, 26-29.A. Wieber Mass Whitening of Synthetic Fibers and Plastics , in [7], pp. 65-82. 

It is not certain whether the errors of the past will be repeated in the future. The thirst for power could indeed lead some company heads to overinvest, especially if they have public funds at their disposal. They would then recreate the overcapacities that have been so harmful to fertilizer, petrochemicals, synthetic fibers, and plastic producers over the last few years. It is also likely that specialties will continue to attract industry leaders anxious to develop fresh prospects. 

Methanol is used in the production of synthetic fibers and plastics and can also be used as a fuel. In addition, it can be converted directly to gasoline. About half of South Africa s gasoline supply comes from methanol produced from syngas. 

During the first half of the nineteenth century one of the few significant researchers of static was Helmholtz (1821—1894), who introduced a comprehensive theory of electricity and also developed the contact potential theory of the electrification of insulators by contact. Also, P. E. Shaw showed the influence of chemical and physical conditions of surfaces on static generation. Many problems have arisen in recent decades in the textile, paper, and plastic industries because of the introduction of new insulating materials, particularly synthetic fibers and plastics, as well as increased processing speeds. This has led to an accelerated pace of research into the generation and discharge of static electricity in insulators. 

However, the development of a western European chemical industry (Chapter 24) brought increasing importance to coal tar as a source of the precursors that were to be used for the synthesis of dyes as well as raw materials for the production of solvents, pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibers, and plastics (Karr, 1963 Weiler, 1963 Aristoff et al., 1981 McNeil, 1981). Coal tar can also be upgraded to gasoline and other liquid fuels. 

As director of the Filmfabrik Wolfen Gajewski was responsible for 11,000 employees. As head of Sparte III he was the leader of another 28,000 employees manufacturing photographic products, synthetic fibers, and plastics. He was vice-chairman of the I.G. Farben technical committee (TEA) and a member of the executive board as well as the central committee. He was also a member of several business organizations and technical commissions. Due to this concentration of posts in his person, Gajewski spent only about 100 days each year in his Wolfen office, according to his testimony at the Nuremberg trial. ... 

At the end of 1929, a fifth working group was founded in Berlin, and this group now took over management of the central German division s photo, synthetic fibers and plastic concerns. ... 

The main points of the program were the doubling of chemical production within seven years, and an even greater increase in production of synthetic fibers and plastic. Such rates of growth could only be reached through the expansion of the petrochemical industry. As of 1965, however, two thirds of chemical production was still based on carbide chemistry. 

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