Grained artificial leather, process for making same and fabricat

Details Grained artificial leather, process for making same and fabricat Grained artificial leather, process for making same and fabricat

1994-08-18

1996-05-21

Ryan, Patrick J.

Stock material or miscellaneous articles

Structurally defined web or sheet

Continuous and nonuniform or irregular surface on layer or...

428105, 428114, 428218, 428286, 428287, 428288, 428290, 428295, 4283044, 4283111, 428334, 428337, 428904, B32B 900

Patent

active

055188001

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to a grained artificial leather, and a process for making the same. This grained artificial leather has good air permeability and water vapor permeability, and exhibits surface smoothness, stain resistance and abrasion resistance, which are improved over those of conventional grained artificial leather. This invention also relates to fabricated articles such as shoes, gloves, a chair and clothes, which have in at least part thereof the grained artificial leather.


BACKGROUND ART

Artificial leathers composed of a fibrous sheet and a high polymeric elastomer have come into general use as essential leather substitutes in many fields such as shoe uppers, auxiliary materials for shoes and clothes. These artificial leathers are classified into three types according to the surface configuration: a suede type, a nubuk type and a grain type. Of these, a suede type and a nubuk type can have good air permeability and water vapor permeability. But, since a grain type has a finishing non-porous surface layer composed of a synthetic resin, the air permeability and vapor permeability are not satisfactory. Especially, shoe uppers and clothes fabricated from a grained artificial leather exhibit an undesirably large stuffiness in wear, and thus, it is desired to reduce the stuffiness.
To solve the above-mentioned problem, an attempt has been made to mechanically needle the grained artificial leather for imparting an air permeability to reduce the stuffiness. This problem is solved when the needle apertures are large enough for the intended reduction of stuffiness, but another problem arises in that fine dusts enter the apertures and thus the leather is stained and the appearance of the leather becomes poor. When the needle apertures are small enough for avoiding staining due to fine dusts, the water vapor permeability is not satisfactory.
A proposal of forming a finishing polyurethane film on a base composed of a mixture of fibers and a high polymeric elastomer has been made to provide an artificial leather having discontinuous film characteristics. The artificial leather also has surface apertures having a large diameter and thus is stained, and the fibrous texture is not completely concealed by the finishing film and develops on the outer surface. Thus the artificial leather does not have a smooth surface nor an attractive appearance. Further the artificial leather does not have a porous polyurethane layer and therefore the abrasion resistance is poor.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 59-116479, a process has been proposed wherein a surface of a base composed of fibers or a mixture of fibers and a high polymer is coated with a high polymer solution; the coated solution is dried to a minor extent; a releasable support having a surface with a multiplicity of fine projections is pressed against the coated surface; the coated surface is dried; and then the releasable support is released, whereby the coated surface is converted into a grained surface having a multiplicity of fine open cells. The grained surface layer is directly formed on the fibrous base of the resulting grained artificial leather, and therefore when the leather is drawn, the fibrous texture of the base readily develops on the grained surface. Further, the leather does not have a porous polyurethane layer, and therefore, the cushioning properties and the abrasion strength are poor.
It is proposed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 3-79643 to provide an artificial leather having good air permeability and water vapor permeability by forming a finishing porous polyurethane film on a base composed of fibers from a W/O emulsion of polyurethane. The resulting artificial leather has the porous finishing polyurethane film as the outermost surface layer, and thus, the abrasion resistance and mechanical strengths are poor as compared with those of artificial leathers having a non-porous polyurethane surface layer. Further, it is required that open cells are stably formed on the surface of the wet porous

REFERENCES:
patent: 3770481 (1973-11-01), Canat
patent: 3968293 (1976-07-01), Cunningham et al.
patent: 3982335 (1976-09-01), Cunningham et al.
patent: 4190572 (1980-02-01), Nishimura et al.
patent: 4434205 (1984-02-01), Fujii et al.
patent: 4515852 (1985-05-01), Katabe et al.

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