Surfactant compositions

Details Surfactant compositions Surfactant compositions

1997-08-26

1999-09-14

Morris, Terrel

Stock material or miscellaneous articles

Pile or nap type surface or component

Composition of pile or adhesive

428 95, 428 96, 442 99, 442164, 442401, 524755, 524773, 524837, 524863, 524864, C08K 506, C08K 509

Patent

active

059520779

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to surfactant compositions and in particular to a composition including a combination of components which provides a vehicle for materials applied to substrates, particularly yams, fibers, tapes and/or textiles and which provides both good immediate spreading and good long term spreading, to formulations for treating such substrates based on the composition and to substrates treated using the composition or formulations based on it.
It is well known to apply materials to substrates, particularly textiles, and the yams, fibers and/or tapes used in making textiles and similar products, to produce beneficial effects either on the properties of the materials or in processing them. A practical requirement in such treatment is that the material should spread over the surface of the substrate. Particularly where the substrate is a pre-formed textile material, the apparent surface is much smaller than the total surface area of the yam or fibre from which it is made and this is significant where the material applied to the substrate is required to spread over the whole surface of the yam and/or fibre and/or tape surface to be fully effective. This spreading over the individual yams and/or fibers is in addition to the first stage spreading needed to coat the apparent surface of the substrate uniformly. Similar requirements can be met in other areas especially of coating e.g. coating film materials, but usually it is not as severe as with textiles as the apparent surface area is much closer to the total surface area.
Among the treatments applied to such substrates are the types of material described as `spin finishes`. Typically, spin finishes are applied to fibers or yams mainly to improve their lubricity so as to speed or ease machine handling during the manufacture of articles, particularly textile articles from the yam or fibre and, thus, commonly spin finish compositions include lubricants.
The treatment e.g. by the application of spin finish materials, of hydrophobic fibers, yams and tapes, particularly of polyolefins, such as polypropylene, and polyesters, can be particularly difficult because most conventional treatment materials are relatively hydrophilic and do not work well on the hydrophobic polymer surface. Hydrophobic materials have been used to treat hydrophobic substrates and technically they can perform their primary function well, although they tend to be relatively expensive. Unfortunately, such hydrophobic materials tend not to be readily biodegradable, in part because they are hydrophobic, and this makes effluent treatment relatively difficult and expensive. Further, their hydrophobicity and consequent incompatibility with water may give rise to down stream processing problems and make effluent treatment more complex. One commercially important use of hydrophobic fibers is as carpet backing especially for tufted carpets. In this use, the carpet backing is now often made of polypropylene and such carpet backing can be made by weaving polypropylene fibre or, more usually, tape e.g. made by splitting stretched film, or using spun-bonded non-woven materials made from polymer fibre. One difficulty with polypropylene carpet backing, whether woven or non-woven, but particularly with spun-bonded non-woven material, is that it can be damaged by the needles used in the tufting process. This problem can be met by lubricating the carpet backing before tufting. The lubricant reduces frictional forces between the polymer and the needle and reduces the damage to the polymer fibre or tape during tufting. Such materials are commonly considered to be a variety of `spin finish` although they are usually applied to the pre-formed textile rather than to the fibre or tape used to make the textile subsequently.
Suitable lubricants particularly based on silicone polymers, are available, but they are expensive specialty chemicals and are not water soluble or dispersible, which limits their bio-degradability. A further problem with such non-water soluble silicone polymers is that after tuning, some

REFERENCES:
patent: 5258451 (1993-11-01), Ohsawa et al.

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