Physical properties and fibrillation tendency of regenerated cellulose fiber dry jet-wet spun from high-molecular weight cotton linter Pulp/NMMO solution

Abstract

This article describes an efficient method for suppressing fibrillation in as-spun regenerated cellulose fiber prepared using high molecular weight (DP 1600) cotton linter pulp/NMMO solution as the starting materials via Lyocell process. The regenerated cellulose fibers were spun using a custom-made lab scale dry jet-wet spinning apparatus, and their physical properties such as birefringence, crystallinity, orientation and lateral order indices, and fibrillation tendency were investigated. Further, the relationship between chain orientation and fibrillation tendency in the cellulose fibers were discussed as a function of varying molecular weights (DP 1000, 1600, and 1600/1000 (95/5) mixture), dope concentrations (6-13 wt%) and take-up speed (10, 30, and 50 m/min). Regenerated cellulose fibers spun from high molecular weight cotton linter pulp (DP 1600) at lower dope concentrations (6-8 wt%) exhibit least fibrillation behavior, whereas the cellulose fibers spun from higher dope concentration (9 wt%) using low molecular weight cotton linter pulp (DP 1000) as well as the mixture (DP 1600/1000 (95/5)) exhibited considerable amount of fibrillation. The results are reported in detail.

Green and Economical Strategy for Spinning Robust Cellulose Filaments

“…The regenerated cellulose multifilament, viscose rayon, as a mature commercial product has been developed for over 100 years owing to the good breathability, lustre, softness, drapability, and so forth. , However, the viscose procedure discharges the toxic CS 2 , waste water, and heavy metal, which would cause serious environmental problems . Therefore, many efforts have been devoted to developing new processing technologies for simplifying the complicated production route and avoiding the hazardous byproducts during the cellulose fiber production process using low-cost “green” chemical reagents and a simple wet-spinning process. − In the recent decades, a series of low-toxic and environmentally friendly cellulose solvent systems such as N -methylmorpholine- N -oxide (NMMO), cuprammonium solution, ionic liquids, and alkali/urea solutions have been developed for the cellulose fiber production. − Although some commercial products such as cuprammonium rayon (cuprammonium solution) and lyocell (NMMO) have been successfully developed from these solvents, the high requirements for the solvent recycle limit their large-scale production . The fibers from ionic liquids exhibit extremely high mechanical properties reaching up to 4.2–5.8 cN dtex –1 , whereas the solvent preparation and recycle still need to be improved for the commercial process .…”

Mechanically Strong Multifilament Fibers Spun from Cellulose Solution via Inducing Formation of Nanofibers

“…Figure 7. Mechanical properties of the NCF (a) and the comparison of mechanical properties of various regenerated cellulose fibers (b).Oval 1 represents the NCF from NaOH/LiOH/urea aqueous system in this work; ovals 2−7 represent the regenerated cellulose fiber from NaOH/urea aqueous system,12 NaOH/ZnO aqueous solution,36 cuprammonium,33 NMMO,40 ionic liquid,41 and NaOH/CS 2 ,38 respectively. The scattering points in the figure are the values of the mechanical properties data of cellulose fibers reported in references.…”

Recent Progress in Regenerated Cellulose Fibers by Wet Spinning

“…The properties and characteristics of fibers produced by wet-spinning processes are summarized in Table 1. [33,38,46,88,90,114,[129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136] It is noted that RCFs from LiCl/DMAc, ILs, and alkali/urea preparations are only at laboratory scale or pilot scale. Obviously, there are only few reports on the production of RCFs with higher performance than commercially available recycled fibers (such as lyocell fibers), which have been commercialized using mature processes and obtained in high yields.…”