Andrew Stowe
Chem-1120-008
Mary Alvarez
Chemistry In Life Essay
The History of Synthetic Fibers and the World Market Textile Industry
The process of choosing a topic for this assignment was an interesting one for me. I have
been thinking about what I wanted to write on since that first day of class when I was informed
of this assignment. When the idea came to me it hit like a box of rocks. Said box of rocks came
crashing down when I was trying to find something made of polyester to wear for an extra credit
assignment that was given to my class. I had no idea that there were so many things made of
polyester! I’ve always found that I write a much better paper when I am writing and researching
a topic that I have an actual interest in learning more about and maybe something that I can
inform others of.
Before the 18th century the textile industry purely consisted of home-based weavers hand
spinning cotton and wool into usable spools of fabric that could be later made into clothing by
someone else. In the 18th century, however, a profound change overtook the textile industry.
Human creativity and ingenuity led to the creation of the Spinning Jenny which could replace
eight hand spinners at once.
In the late 18th century the majority of the world’s textiles came out of English based
factories. Early in the 19th century the technology, despite the efforts of the English, found its
way to America when Samuel Slater opened a yarn mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The United
States had all the factors needed to become a textile powerhouse. It had an abundance of natural
resources in land for cotton production, a very large workforce that was getting larger every day
with a massive influx of population due to immigration, and a capitalist free market that could
allow private industry to flourish.
The textile industry impacted the industrial revolution of the United States in a manner
that could only be second to the automobile industry. A market that was dominated until this
time by agriculture was turned, almost overnight, into an industrial market. Textile factories
began to pop up everywhere, along with cities to house the workers. A new working class
developed: the working middle class. It is hard to believe that something like this could happen
just because of textiles but I imagine it to be something similar to the creation of life. All the
pieces were in the right place at the right time with the right circumstances when the push came.
It just so happens that in this case the push came from an invention called the Power Loom.
Since these times the textile industry has changed drastically. With new labor laws
children can no longer work in large textile factories and they can no longer pay women slave
wages to man the machines. The market has had to make adjustments that can enhance
production, profit, and at the same time create more durable material. Once again you can chalk
it up to human creativity and ingenuity with the creation of the first synthetic fabric: Rayon.
Since that time many more types have been created, each with their own respective advantages
and disadvantages. In this paper I will be covering only a handful of the most important synthetic
fibers: Rayon, Nylon, Polyester, and last but not least, Spandex.
Rayon, the first synthetic fiber was invented around the year 1855 primarily to be used as
a substitution for silk. Just because it was invented didn’t mean it was actually able to be mass
produced though. This didn’t happen until 1924 when the Dupont Chemical Company acquired
the rights to the process and was able to make it economically possible to be produced on large
scale. Rayon is made from wood cellulose (which is characterized by its Beta 1,4 linkages of
glucose to form a long polymer) so is technically not 100% man made. Nor is it a natural fiber, I
like to call it a tweener.
Rayon’s uses vary but it is most effective in humid, hot climates because of its ability to
breathe and wick away moisture. You can find Rayon in many articles of clothing as well as:
“bedspreads, blankets, curtains, upholstery, yarn, medical surgery merchandises and other items”
(Cartwright). Rayon has acquired a rather poor reputation due to its lack of ability to stand up to
heavy wear and some products yellow with age. However, Rayon has stuck around this long
because of its ability to drape well and serve as a good replacement for silk.
To produce Rayon you begin with cellulose, usually from wood pulp but any plant
material with a long molecular chain would work. Then you soak the cellulose in a caustic soda,
which forms a concentrated cellulose soda. This concentration is “then rolled and pressed to
remove the excess soda” and “shredded into a substance called white crumb” (Wisegeek). This
white crumb is then oxidized, forming a shorter molecular chain (oxidation breaks the covalent
bonds between glucose molecules) and then treated with carbon disulfide. After reacting with the
carbon disulfide the white crumb is turned into a yellow crumb which is then dissolved in
another caustic solution to relax the hydrogen bonds in the cellulose producing a highly viscous
substance. Coining this phase the “viscose process” (Wisegeek)
Cellulose 1. Cellulose is treated with alkali and carbon disulfied to produce viscous. (Wikipedia)
Cellulose 2. 2 molecules of cellulose (Wikipedia)
Cellulose 3. A polymer of cellulose (Wikipedia)
After the viscous process the fluid is aged to further break down the cellulose structures
and produce even slurry, which is then filtered to remove impurities. After this step small air
pockets are removed making a strong, even fiber. Now that we have a fiber we have something
that can be forced through a spinning wheel and made into a fabric. After that the possibilities
are almost endless!
Nylon was another large development in the textile industry that, headed by an American
chemist Wallace Hume Caruthers, the DuPont chemical company brought into production in
1939. Nylon is the world’s very first purely man made fabric, as it is made of petrochemicals.
The catalyst for the production of Nylon was World War II. At this time the majority of the
worlds silk came out of Asia and the military needed something to replace it with in their
parachutes, tires, tents, ropes and other various items. Nylon has many different uses, such as:
“clothing, carpeting, pantyhose, Velcro, toothbrushes, guitar strings, fishing line, and many
more.” (Cartwright)
Nylon, in its most basic form, is a polyamide fiber. “Derived from a diamine and a
dicarboxylic acid” (Raghavendra). The possibilities for production of Nylon are expansive
because of the diverse varieties of diamenes and dicarboxyllic acids that can be produced. The
most common versions are “nylon 66 (polyhexamethylene adiamide) and nylon 6
(Polycaprolactam, a cyclic nylon intermediate)” (Raghavendra).
Possibly the most widely known contribution Nylon has made to us today is the mass
production of pantyhose. But lesser known is its contribution to outdoor life activities such as
mountain climbing rope, O-rings and wet suits. Nylon is another one of those fabrics that can
surprise you by how often it is used in various materials. Also it is interesting to note that
different fiber types are preferred in different areas of the world. “Nylon 66 has been preferred in
North American markets, whereas nylon 6 is much more popular in Europe and elsewhere”
(Raghavendra). None of my research was able to pull up any information on a reason for this
other than that in the 1930’s when Caruthers and his colleagues were struggling to come up with
the right formula for usable nylon they were able to partially produce nylon 6, instead they came
up with a polymer called lactam (or 6-caprolactam). They later published that polymerization
wasn’t an option and stuffed lactam away in the bottom drawer. “When I.G.Farben Industrie's
technicians in Germany knew about Carothers' nylon 66, they dug out his paper on 6caprolactam and very soon (in 1941) managed to synthesize nylon 6, which was sold as Perlon”
(Trossarelli). That could explain why nylon 6 is more popular in European markets.
For production the diamide and the dicarboxyllic acid are combined through dehydration
to form a long chain polymer (nylon 6,6 shown below) and then manufactured to nylon filaments
through a two-step melt spinning and drawing process. The polymers are melted, filtered, deaerated, then “extruded through a spinneret into a chamber where the melt solidifies into a filament form
(Raghavendra). Once in its filament form nylon can then be drawn cold and spooled for use in the
textile industry.
Nylon 1. Nylon 6 and Nylon 66 structures
Nylon 2. 2 different views of the use of 1,6-diaminohexane and adipic acid to form nylon 66 (Ophardt)
Next on my list of interesting synthesized fabrics is polyester. I would have to say that
polyester is my favorite of these synthesized fibers just because of how versatile and diverse it
has become. Aside from its bad name it received from the double knit fads of the 1950’s it has
earned its position among the most important of fabrics like cotton and wool.
Polyester is a strong fiber that is resistant to wrinkling and because of this keeps its shape
very well. Polyester and cotton blends provide a permanent press type of quality to fabrics and
have become very popular. At this point in time I encourage you to walk to your closet, pull out
a few articles of clothing and look at their tags. Chances are very good that the majority of your
clothing will have at least a blend of polyester and cotton (my hooded sweatshirt I am wearing
right now contains 80% cotton and 20% polyester). This exactly the reason for me choosing to
write on this topic, I find it fascinating! Polyester is not without its downsides however.
Polyester melts at medium to high temperatures which means it can’t be used in situations where
fire resistance is desired.
The word polyester when broken to its roots literally means poly (many) ester (carboxylic
acid-oxygen-carbon covalent bonds). High paid chemists would call it “long-chain polymers
chemically composed of at least 85% by weight of an ester and a dihydric alcohol and a
terephthalic acid” (Jezek). For those of you who are not high paid chemists that means: the
linking of several esters within the fibers. You take a molecule with an alcohol (OH) group on
each terminal end and react it with a molecule that has a carboxylic acid (COOH) functional
group at each terminal end and create an ester bond over and over again. It probably goes
without saying that there are a lot of polyesters out there but when it comes to textile fibers the
term polyester usually refers to polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
polyester 1 Polyethylene terephthalate (Wikipedia)
This is where things get really interesting. PET has a wide variety of uses and it doesn’t
even come close to being limited to the textiles industry. PET is widely used in the production of
plastic water bottles! Finding this out brought a whole new host of questions to mind for me.
How do they take something that is used for the production of the hooded sweatshirt on my back
and turn it into a plastic bottle? I could write a whole paper on this but I better stick to the topic
at hand, that being its use in the textile industry.
Polyesters like PET are simply put; condensation polymers. The formation of polyester
follows the same steps as making a simple ester. You simply take 2 molecules like ethylene
glycol and terephthalic acid (pictured below). Notice that ethylene glycol has an alcohol group
on each end and terephthalic acid has the carboxylic acid on each end. This allows molecules to
be repeatedly reacted to each other in an A-B-A-B pattern. Once this step is complete there a
couple different paths you can take. The fibers can either be sent into production of textiles or
packing (bottles for water, bear, juice, and detergents.
Polyester 2 Reaction of ethylene glycol with terephthalic acid (Ophardt)
Last but not least we find ourselves looking at Spandex. Spandex, or elastane, is an
interesting fabric; it can be stretched many times its length and then spring back to its original
size. First produced in the early 1950’s, spandex was at first supposed to be a replacement for
rubber. It is more durable and resistant to washing, sweat, and heat than latex. Spandex fibers are
better than rubber because despite their increased tensile strength and versatility, but they remain
lighter weight and can stretch to almost 500% of their original length without sustaining any
damage! Spandex is relatively small news as far as market demand is concerned relative to
cotton or nylon but new uses for it continue to be discovered every day.
Spandex, like nylon, started to be developed during World War II. Due to the increased
demand for rubber to build equipment, and its fluctuating price it became necessary to look for a
suitable alternative. At around the same time DuPont scientists were developing Nylon they
found that other polymers could be useful in making more stretchable nylons or in making
lightweight garments. “The first spandex fibers were produced on an experimental level by one
of the early pioneers in polymer chemistry, Farbenfabriken Bayer” (Irving). Bayer earned a
German patent for this in 1952.
Spandex is a synthetic polymer. “Chemically, it is made up of a long-chain polyglycol
combined with a short diisocyanate, and contains at least 85% polyurethane” (Irving). Spandex
has four different methods of production: melt extrusion, reaction spinning, solution dry
spinning, and solution wet spinning. Before any of these steps can be used the ignition step of
reacting monomers (polyglycol and diisocyanate) to produce a prepolymer must take place. After
that is accomplished the prepolymer can be reacted further in various ways and drawn out into
fibers. The most common method for this is the dry spinning method.
Spandex 1 Etheylene glycol
Spandex 2 Methylene diphenyl 4,4-diisocyanate
Step one to the dry spinning method is the production of the prepolymer I described
above. The compounds are mixed in a reaction vessel under the right conditions so they react and
form the prepolymer. After this is produced it is further reacted in the second step with an equal
amount of diamine to further extend the molecular chain and produce the spinning solution. In
the third step the spinning solution is pumped into a cylindrical spinning cell where it cures and
converts into fibers. The fibers leave the cell in step four and a specific amount of solid strands
are bundled together to form the thickness wanted. In steps five and 6 the fibers go through
chemical treatment to finish the fibers and treat them with finishing materials that prevent the
fibers from sticking together. (Irving)
Reading this paper provides one with a lot of information but hopefully the reader will
find it interesting. Some of the steps of production can kind of get monotonous but I hope the
visual refrences I’ve given help. I have learned a lot during my research for this assignment. I’ve
learned that the history behind the production of these synthetic fibers largely revolved around
World War II. Personally I found the research and writing about polyester to be my favorite. I
think its amazing just how abundant polyester is. Its all around us everywhere, in the our
waterbottles, in our couches, in our clothing and in our tires! So the next time someone tells you
that chemistry isn’t interesting to them and they don’t know why they have to learn it, remind
them that they wear chemistry, eat and drink from chemistry and even sleep in chemistry.
Works Cited
Cartwright, Robin. "The history of synthetic fibers." Ecozeal.com (2008).
Irving, Gerard. F. "How Products Are Made Volume 4: Spandex." www.madehow.com/volume4/spandex.html (2007).
Jezek, Geno. "What is Polyester?" www.whatispolyester.com/ (2006).
Ophardt, Charles E. "Condensation Polymers."
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/402condensepolymers.html (2003).
Raghavendra, Dahiya, Kamath. "Nylon Fibers." www.engr.utk.edu/mse/pages/textiles/nylon
fibers.htm (2004).
Trossarelli, Prof. L. "The History of Nylon." www.caimateriali.org/index.php?id=32 (2010).
Wikipedia. For images. www.Wikipedia.com (n.d.).
Wisegeek. "What is Rayon?" www.wisegeek.com/what-is-rayon.html (n.d.).