Production of functional textile filaments from chemically modified cellulose fibers

Abstract

Cellulose is the most abundant natural polymer on earth originated from renewable plant biomass. Among all plant sources, cotton fibers contain the highest amount of pure cellulose, which is used directly in textile fibers for yarn and fabric production. Cellulose fibers (more commonly referred to as pulp fibers) are extracted through various pulping processes to remove the lignin andC hemicellulose, which increases the overall alpha-cellulose contents. However, cellulose fibers have a lower aspect ratio and do not fulfill the technical requirements for textile and yarn production. However, the aspect ratio can be increased by dissolving the cellulose fibers in an appropriate solution to regenerate them for getting continuous filaments. Currently, cellulose regeneration processes require toxic chemical processes that are not environmentally friendly and required extensive pre-treatment. In this study, we developed a green method to produce textile filaments from existing kraft pulp (cellulose) fibers. The cellulose fibers were chemically modified to produce a low-substituted carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and dialdehyde cellulose (DAC). The CMC and DAC gels were then extruded through a wet-spinning process to obtain cross-linked textile filaments. These filaments have a low content of carboxylic groups (∼1.4 mmol/g cellulose) and aldehyde groups (∼1.5 mmol/g cellulose) and underwent a significant reduction of water absorption with high mechanical strength. In this work, the degree of hydrophilicity of the produced filaments was optimized by controlling the functional groups (carboxyl and aldehyde). We also focus on other conditions that affect the hydrophilicity of the filaments to achieve similar absorption properties of cotton fabric (i.e., water uptake - 1.5 g/g yarn).