Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Coated or structually defined flake – particle – cell – strand,... – Staple length fiber
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-21
2001-10-23
Edwards, N. (Department: 1774)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Coated or structually defined flake, particle, cell, strand,...
Staple length fiber
C428S364000, C428S090000, C428S097000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06306498
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to fibers for electrostatic flocking, and electrostatically flocked goods. More particularly, it relates to poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based fibers, for electrostatic flocking, which have an excellent dispersibility, and electrostatically flocked goods which have an excellent appearance and also have an excellent tread-proofness and light resistance.
BACKGROUND ART
As the fiber for electrostatic flocking, a nylon fiber has exclusively been employed heretofore. In particular, the nylon fiber having soft hand has exclusively been employed in uses such as automobile interiors, but has poor light resistance. Thus, there has been required electrostatically flocked goods which have soft hand, dispersibility of standing fibers, and an excellent appearance in uses such as car seat coverings.
On the other hand, a general-purpose polyester fiber containing polyethylene terephthalate) as a principal component has an excellent light resistance as a fiber for electrostatic flocking. However, a general-purpose polyester fiber has a poor tread-proofness, a soft hand, poor dispersibility of standing fibers and a poor appearance so that its use is limited. There has been disclosed a suggestion (Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 5-59610) of improving poor tread-proofness by using a fiber having a flat section in electrostatic flocking of the general-purpose polyester fiber. As a result, the properties were slightly improved, but satisfactory properties have not been obtained. Therefore, a further improvement has been required.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a fiber for electrostatic flocking, which has an excellent dispersibility, and electrostatically flocked goods which have an excellent appearance and also have excellent tread-proofness, scratch resistance and light resistance.
The present inventors have found that the object can be attained by selectively employing a specific polyester fiber as a fiber for electrostatic flocking.
That is, the object of the present invention can be attained by a poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based fiber for electrostatic flocking, the fiber being a short fiber having a cut length of 0.2-3.0 mm.
The present invention is also directed to electrostatically flocked goods formed of the poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based short or chopped fiber having a cut (chopped) length of 0.2-3.0 mm.
The present invention will be described in detail below.
The poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based fiber used in the present invention refers to a polyester fiber comprising trimethylene terephthalate units, as principal repeating units, in an amount of about 50 mol % or more, preferably 70% or more, more preferably 80 mol % or more, and most preferably 90% or more. Accordingly, the poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based fiber according to the present invention includes a poly(trimethylene terephthalate) fiber containing another acid component and/or glycol component, as a third component, in the total amount of about 50 mol % or less, preferably 30 mol % or less, more preferably 20 mol % or less, and most preferably 10% or less.
Poly(trimethylene terephthalate) is synthesized by combining terephthalic acid or a functional derivative thereof, for example, dimethyl terephthalate, with trimethylene glycol in the presence of a catalyst under suitable reaction conditions. In this synthesis process, a suitable one or more third components may be added to form a copolymer polyester. Alternatively, polyester other than poly(trimethylene terephthalate), for example, poly(ethylene terephthalate), nylon and poly(trimethylene terephthalate) may be blended or conjugate-spun (sheath core, side-by-side, etc.) after they were separately synthesized.
The third component to be added includes, for example, an aliphatic dicarboxylic acid (e.g. oxalic acid, adipic acid, etc.), an alicyclic dicarboxylic acid (e.g. cyclohexanedicarboxylic acid, etc.), an aromatic dicarboxylic acid (e.g. isophthalic acid, sodium sulfoisophthalic acid, etc.), an aliphatic glycol (e.g. ethylene glycol, 1,2-propylene glycol, tetramethylene glycol, etc.), an alicyclic glycol (e.g. cyclohexanedimethanol, etc.), an aliphatic glycol containing aromatic (e.g. 1,4-bis(&bgr;-hydroxyethoxy)benzene, etc.), an polyether glycol (e.g. polyethylene glycol, polypropylene glycol, etc.), an aliphatic oxycarboxylic acid (e.g. &ohgr;-oxycaproic acid, etc.) and an aromatic oxycarboxylic acid (e.g. P-oxybenzoic acid, etc.). A compound having one or three or more ester forming functional group(s) (e.g. benzoic acid, glycerin, etc.) can also be used as long as the polymer is substantially linear.
Furthermore, matting agents such as titanium dioxide, stabilizers such as phosphoric acid, ultraviolet absorbers such as a hydroxybenzophenone derivative, nucleating agents for crystallization such as talc, lubricants such as aerogyl, antioxidants such as hindered phenol derivative, flame retardants, antistatic agents, pigments, fluorescent whiteners, infrared absorbers and defoamers may be contained as the component to be added.
In the present invention, the poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based fiber can be prepared by applying any known spinning method to the above-mentioned poly(trimethylene terephthalate) polymer. For example, any of a method of preparing an unstretched yarn (undrawn) at a take-up rate of about 1500 m/min and stretching/twisting the resulting yarns by about 2-3.5 times (conventional spinning process), a direct stretching method wherein a spinning step and a stretching or drawing twisting step are directly connected (spin-draw process) and a high-speed spinning method whose take-up rate is 5000 m/min or more (spin take-up process) can be employed.
The poly(trimethylene terephthalate) fiber used in the present invention preferably has an elastic recovery at 20% extension of 70-98%, and more preferably 87-98%, thus providing a fiber having an excellent appearance and tread-proofness.
If the poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based fiber having the above-mentioned elastic recovery is prepared, the spinning temperature on melt spinning of the polymer is preferably controlled within a range of 270-290° C., and more preferably 270-280° C. As the spinning method, for example, a spin draw method and a conventional spinning process wherein the take-up rate is within a range of 1000 to 2000 m/min are preferred. To obtain the elastic recovery of 87-98%, the spinning method of the latter is particularly preferred. The elastic recovery of the fiber thus obtained is markedly larger than that of the nylon fiber and poly(ethylene terephthalate) fiber used for electrostatic flocking as is mentioned in the examples and comparative examples described hereinafter.
The poly(trimethylene terephthalate)-based fiber used in the present invention can have a section with polygonal shapes, polyphyllous shapes, hollow shapes and free shape, for example, circular shape, triangular shape, L-shape, T-shape, Y-shape, W-shape, octaphyllous shape, flat shape and dog-bone shape.
The fiber for electrostatic flocking of the present invention is a short fiber having a cut length of 0.2-3 mm. When the cut length exceeds 3.0 mm, the tread-proofness is lowered and the surface appearance becomes poor. On the other hand, when the cut length is smaller than 0.2 mm, the high-grade appearance and softness are impaired, which is not preferred. The cut length is preferably 0.5-3.0 mm, and more preferably 0.7-1.5 mm.
The fiber for electrostatic flocking of the present invention can be obtained by cutting a tow having tens to millions of denier, which is obtained by a method of stretching an unstretched yarn tow or bundling stretched yarn to form a tow, into cut or chopped fibers having a length of 0.2-3.0 mm by using a guillotine cutter. A fiber having an arbitrary thickness can be selected, and the single yarn denier is preferably 0.5-10 d, and more preferably 1-5 d.
The fiber for electrostatic flocking of the present invention is preferably subjected to a pre-electr
Ohira Toshihiko
Yuuki Yasunori
Asahi Kasei Kabushiki Kaisha
Edwards N.
Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner L.L.P.
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