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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Cotton Chemistry and Utilization Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #351918
Title: Elastic nonwovens containing cotton fibers

Author
item SIKDAR, PARTHA - University Of Georgia
item BHAT, GAJANAN - University Of Georgia
item Hinchliffe, Doug
item Condon, Brian

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/22/2018
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Nonwoven products continue to grow because of their unique structure and properties and one’s ability to engineer their properties for desired applications, which include filters, absorbent products and medical nonwovens. Meltblowing is a one-step process in which high-velocity hot air blows a molten thermoplastic polymer from an extruder die tip onto a collector to form a fine fibrous self-bonding web. Elastomeric polymers such as polyurethanes and olefin copolymers provide stretchability and can be melt blown using commercially available resins. Another alternative is to use the spunbonding process where stronger elastomeric nonwovens can be produced, although with relatively larger diameter fibers. Current research is to produce elastomeric nonwovens containing cotton by the combination of appropriate processes such as meltblowing or spunbonding and hydroentangling. Meltblown fabrics have very high surface area due to microfibers and have good absorbency, permeability and barrier properties. Whereas stretchability is an advantage, adding cotton fiber into such products can enhance the performance of such products. Cotton will provide improved absorbency as well as comfort which is not possible for most of the synthetic fibers. The webs and laminated structures produced by various combinations are being evaluated for their physical properties such as weight, thickness, air permeability, pore size, tensile strength, bursting strength and absorbency. Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) is being used to determine the fiber structure, as well as the structure of composite webs. In addition to these, the stretchability of the webs and stretch recovery from certain level of stretch is measured using cyclic loading and unloading using our tensile tester. Results from this ongoing study will be presented.