Viscose rayon filtration

Much of the cellulose acetate is delustered by the addition of titanium dioxide pigment, as with viscose rayon. Between filtrations (and after the last filtration), the dope goes to storage tanks that serve to remove bubbles in this case, a vacuum is not necessary. From the final storage tank, it is pumped into a header located at the top of each spinning machine then it is directed to a series of... 

Plate pr esses. Sometimes called sheet filters, these are assemblies of plates, sheets of filter media, and sometimes screens or frames. Thev are essentially modified filter presses with practically no cakeholding capacity. A press may consist of many plates or of a single filter sheet between two plates, the plates may be rectangular or circular, and the sheets may lie in a horizontal or vertical plane. The operation is similar to that of a filter press, and the flow rates are about the same as for disk filters. The operating pressure usually does not exceed 138 kPa (20 psig). The presses are used most frequently for low-viscosity liqmds, but an ordinaiy filter press with thin frames is commonly used as a clarifier for 100-Pa s (1000-P) rayon-spinning solution. Here the filtration pressure may be 6900 kPa (1000 psig). 

Today rayon is made by either the viscose or the cuprammonium process. The latter process is based on Schweitzer s discovery in 1857 that it is possible to dissolve cellulose in cuprammonium hydroxide, the soln being due to the formation of a Cu cellulose complex. The mfg procedure involves processing the cuprammonium soln by filtration and deaeration prior to pumping it thru holes in a spinneret into si alkaline w which coagulates the Cu-cellulose soln into rayon filaments. The filaments are then stretched to the desired fineness (Ref 11). The viscose process is the most widely used because of its great versatility and low cost operation. 

Cuprammonium rayon is made from scoured and bleached cotton linters or purified wood pulp with a high a cellulose content. The cellulose is washed and then pressed until it contains about 50 per cent of water. In this state, it is placed in a mechanical mixer together with cuprammonium solution and agitated until completely dissolved, whilst the temperature is maintained at 5° C (41 °F). The solution is then diluted to about 10 per cent concentration. After filtration and exposure to vacuum to remove air bubbles and dissolved gases, the solution is allowed to ripen in enclosed vessels until it is the desired viscosity. In modem practice copper carbonate is mixed intimately with the cellulose in a shredding machine and the resultant mass is then broken up and stirred for some hours with aqueous ammonia and caustic soda, when it passes into solution. 

The viscose obtained from Cross and Bevan was so successful for production of lamp filaments that Steam asked Topham to try to spin it for use in textiles. The first experiments failed dismally. After several years of painstaking work, Topham made several discoveries essential to the spinning of yam from viscose aging (ripening) of the solution, filtration to remove particles, multiple-hole platinum spinnerettes, and a circular, centrifugally operated yarn collecting device that twisted the yam and packaged it in convenient cake form [117]. The Topham box, as it is still called, or variations of it are still on many of the continuous-filament rayon machines today. 

---