Chemical and mechanical properties of butyl methacrylate grafted wool fiber

Abstract

Because polymer-grafted wool fibers had been reported to have better functional performance, a K 2 S 2 O 8 -NaHSO 3 redox system was used as the initiator for the grafting copolymerization of butyl methacrylate (BMA) onto wool fibers. Grafted samples of wool-g-BMA with different grafting percentages (5.2-25.86) were obtained through variations in the monomer concentration in the reaction system. The evidence for grafting was provided by scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. After the grafting, the moisture retention of the wool-g-BMA fibers decreased slightly. Optical measurements showed that the birefringence decreased, indicating a lower degree of molecular orientation of the wool-g-BMA fibers. The tensile strength increased as the grafting percentage increased. Beyond an 18 -25% grafting percentage, the elongation at break decreased, and this indicated a reduction of the elastic deformation, which meant that the flexibility of the modified fibers may have deteriorated.

Keratin Associations with Synthetic, Biosynthetic and Natural Polymers: An Extensive Review

“…They observed that the moisture regain decreases, while the max load and strain at max load increase, with increasing grafting [141]. Similar systems were prepared by Meng [142] and Freddi et al [143], for the graft copolymerization of butyl methacrylate (BMA) and benzyl methacrylate (BzMA) onto wool fibres. They also observed that tensile strength increases with grafting, together with decreasing the elastic deformation for high modification degrees (>25% for BMA and >45% for BzMA) and decreasing the moisture retention and the molecular orientation (as seen by birefringence).…”