Effect of sea component dissolution on fibrous structure of islands-in-the-sea spunbond nonwovens

This work presents the preliminary results of our efforts that focused on the development of lightweight and more fibrous nonwoven. For this objective, nonwoven webs that contain bicomponent filaments with island-in-the-sea cross section was produced by spunbonding, which involves extruding of sea and island polymer melts through dies, cooling, and attenuating the bicomponent filaments by high velocity air streams. Nylon-6 and Polyethylene were chosen as the island and sea polymers, respectively. Bonding process was applied to web first to keep structural integrity after removing the sea polymer. The web was hydroentangled with high speed water jets prior to the dissolving process to obtain fiber entanglement. Xylene, which is one of the few chemical that can dissolve Polyethylene, was used for the dissolution of the sea component from the fibrous structure of the spunbond nonwoven. Removal of the sea polymer from spunbond nonwovens that contain bicomponent filaments with islands-in-the-sea cross section was achieved by the developed dissolution process. Weight, thickness, and area of the nonwoven samples changed after the dissolution. After removing the sea polymer, spunbond nonwoven contains only thin island fibers and also gets lighter. Lightweight and more fibrous nonwovens can be obtained with the method given in this study. (paper)