Binary structured polypropylene-/propylene-based elastomer fibrous membranes with enhanced flexibility

Abstract

Polypropylene (PP) fibrous membranes are widely used in medical and healthcare due to its sustainability. However, pristine PP fibrous membranes show poor flexibility, which limits their advanced functional application in medical and healthcare. Therefore, to improve the flexibility of PP fibrous membranes, propylene-based elastomer (PBE), a copolymer compatible with PP, was introduced by using the melt blowing technique in this study. The SEM images show that the PP/PBE fibrous membrane samples expressed a binary structured network morphology consisting of fibers with a diameter distribution ranging from 0.4 to 15 µm. With an increase in PBE mass ratio from 15 to 80 wt%, the frequency of fibers with a diameter <3 µm increased from 48.6 to 61.2%, thus making the elastic recovery rate in the machine direction (MD) increase from 62.9 to 80.3% and softness values increase from 15.88 to 54.31. Meanwhile, air permeability increased from 856 to 2257 m3/m2 · h as the mass per unit area of the samples decreased from 129.9 to 40.1 g/m2. This work provides an alternate method for producing flexible fibrous membranes that have potential for application in items such as surgical gown cuffs, bandages, and face mask ear loops.

The Application of Hollow Segmented Pie Bicomponent Spunbond Hydro-Entangled Microfiber Nonwovens for Microfiber Synthetic Leather Apparel

“…PET/PA6 HSBSYMNW was made using bicomponent spunbond and hydro-entanglement technology. 9,12 First, PET and PA6 chips were fed into two extruder hoppers to melt. Ten, the melted polymers were quantitatively pushed into a bicomponent spinneret to create sixteen-segment hollow pie fibers.…”

“…To date, many works have focused on the preparation and application of segmented pie bicomponent spunbond hydro-entangled microfiber nonwovens, however, there is a dearth of applications for microfiber synthetic leather used for apparel. 9-11…”

“…To date, many works have focused on the preparation and application of segmented pie bicomponent spunbond hydro-entangled microfiber nonwovens, however, there is a dearth of applications for microfiber synthetic leather used for apparel. [9][10][11] The aim of the present work was to prepare the polyester/ nylon 6 hollow segmented pie bicomponent spunbond hydro-entangled microfiber nonwoven (PET/PA6 HSBSYM-NW) as the leather base for the microfiber synthetic leather used for apparel. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of PET/PA6 HSBSYMNW applied to microfiber synthetic leather.…”

Tailoring the softness performance of polyethylene/polypropylene micro‐nanofibrous fabrics for skin contacts

“…The softness scores increased from 70.39 to 83.11 as the die temperature increased from 260 to 290 C, showing excellent softness properties. 20 The superior softness properties of the PE/PP micro-nanofibrous fabrics were mainly attributed to small fiber diameters in the micro-nano scale and the fluffy structure from the interconnected "curved" fibers. Overall, based on these experimental results, high die temperatures and the right blend ratio of polymers were useful to improve the softness of the samples.…”

“…17,18 Generally, adding functional polymers during the meltblowing process has been an effective and facile strategy to improve the performance of PP micro-nanofibrous fabrics. 19 Adding elastic polymers to create the blend, for example, propylene-based elastomer 20 and thermoplastic polyurethane, 21 can improve the elasticity performance of PP fabrics. Immiscible polymers, for example, polystyrene, 22 polyethylene glycol, 23 and polyester, 24 can improve the distribution of blend fiber diameters.…”