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Rayon/nylon skin/core composite fibers with enhanced adhesion were produced using a wire coating process. After spin finish removal by water washing, the nylon core fibers were pretreated with fumaric acid ( FA ) as an adhesion promoter and then coated with viscose rayon. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to identify the chemical bonds formed between FA and both rayon and nylon. The results indicate that carboxyl groups of FA reacted with amine end groups of nylon, forming amide bonds. Other carboxyl ends of FA reacted with hydroxyl groups of rayon, forming ester bonds. Due to the formation of these bonds, the interfacial adhesion in the composite fibers significantly improved under specific sets of application conditions.

Kenaf fibers offer the advantage of being renewable, biodegradable, and environmen tally safe, but kenaf is difficult to process and spin because of its coarseness, stiffness, and the low cohesion of its fiber bundles. In this research, kenaf fibers are treated by a modified chemical degumming method to improve their properties. The finer and softer kenaf fiber bundles are easier to process than those in earlier studies. Treated kenaf fiber bundles are blended with Pima cotton and spun on a cotton processing system to yield blended 30/70 kenaf/cotton yams. For comparison, 100% cotton yarn, 30/70 jute/cotton yarn, and 30/70 flax/cotton blended yarn are also prepared. The kenaf/cotton blended yarns are comparable to the jute/cotton and flax/cotton blends. Experimental woven fabrics made from 100% cotton yam and from the blended yarns reveal that the breaking strength of kenaf/cotton blended fabric is similar to that of other blends, but lower than that of 100% cotton fabric. The kenaf blended fabric displays the highest air permeability. When the Kawabata Evaluation System is used to evaluate the fabrics, the results show that the blends are stiffer and less recoverable after deformation than the 100% cotton fabric, but the measured surface properties of the blended fabrics are comparable to those of 100% cotton.

Kenaf is a bast fiber that offers the advantage of being biodegradable, renewable, and environmentally safe. Unfortunately, mechanically harvested (raw) kenaf fibers are coarse, brittle, and difficult to process through conventional textile and nonwoven equipment. Kenaf batts can be prepared by an air-laid process, but the batts do not have stable uniform structures. In earlier work, we attempted to card kenaf on a cotton

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