New Generation Fibrillated Acrylic Fiber for High Performance Non-wovens and Specialty Composites, 1990 Nonwovens Conference Proceedings

This paper discusses the properties and applications of a new generation of a highly fibrillated acrylic pulp, which has been recently developed to serve as a high efficiency binder in addition to providing other engineering attributes to papers, non-wovens, pulp molded products, and specialty composites. The fibrillated form in combination with optimum fiber length permits both mechanical locking of various particles and fibers as well as adding good mechanical strength both to the material during processing as well as to the finished product. This newly developed acrylic pulp has a higher degree of fibrillation, a higher surface area and improved thermal resistance relative to other synthetic pulp typically used in the production of non-wovens. Basic polymer and pulp properties are reviewed as well as processing characteristics on wet-laid paper machines and in dry mixers. The ability to engineer the fiber architecture to meet specific end-use applications is reviewed. Various applications of acrylic pulp are reviewed to demonstrate usefulness in a diverse range of non-wovens such as combustible shell casings, carbon loaded sorptive filter media, asbestos replacement and other specialty products.