Production and separation of knitted lyocell-cellulose acetate fabrics from crimped cellulose acetate fibers

Abstract

Cellulose acetate (CA) can serve as bio-favourable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substitute in textiles, being biodegradable and mechanically disintegrable. Textile fiber production was hypothesised possible using filter tow production facilities. Different crimped CA fibers from a filter tow machine were used to produce mixed Lyocell-CA yarns via ring spinning. Yarn production, fiber-specific dyeing and subsequent material separation (recovery of 88 %) was possible by standard processes. Yarns of a 50:50 %w/w have a titer of ∼46 tex (≙ g/1000 m) and a tenacity of ∼0.1 N/tex. The yarns show increasing tenacity with increasing lyocell content (∼0.2 N/tex for 100 % Lyocell). Furthermore, CA was separated from dispersion dye using acetone-ethanol mixtures (1:2 v/v). Though ameliorating CA fiber spinning is required for pure CA yarn production, this process is implantable on existing machinery in common machine settings. Textile CA fibers can be produced by filter tow infrastructure. CA can help reducing the atmosphere's fossil-carbon enrichment.