JP2010084302A - Cotton swab - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a cotton swab that is put a man-made fiber-produced product to practical use, having good antistaticity and cleaning efficiency, and being excellent in water absorbency. <P>SOLUTION: The cotton swab has a cotton ball consisting of a composite fiber with a fiber length of not more than 60 mm, at least at one end of its shaft body. The composite fiber includes a sheath section of a fiber-forming resin and a core section of polyether block amide co-polymer wherein the area ratio of the core section to the sheath section is 5/95-95/5 and wherein the cotton swab is an eccentric composite fiber with an exposure angle on the surface of the core section is 5-90°. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention relates to a cotton swab having excellent antistatic properties and water absorption.

Conventionally, polyamide fibers and polyester fibers have been widely used for clothing and industrial materials because they have excellent properties such as yarn strength, abrasion resistance, and acid resistance. Recently, they are also used for industrial swabs. (Refer to patent document 1 etc.).

Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 5-28328

However, polyamide fibers and polyester fibers, especially polyamide fibers, are fibers with higher water absorption among synthetic fibers, but natural fibers have better water absorption, and are not limited to the clothing field. Silicon wafers and IC circuit boards Natural fiber cotton is often used for cleaning fine parts in the industrial field and for absorbing solvents such as water, alcohol, acetone, and hexane.
An object of the present invention is to put a product using synthetic fiber into practical use, and to provide a swab having excellent cleaning performance and excellent antistatic properties and water absorption.

The above object is a cotton swab having a cotton ball composed of a composite fiber having a fiber length of 60 mm or less at at least one end of a shaft body, the composite fiber having a fiber-forming resin as a sheath portion, and a polyether block amide. An eccentric composite in which the copolymer is used as a core, the area ratio between the core and the sheath is 5/95 to 95/5, and the exposure angle to the surface of the core is 5 to 90 ° in the fiber cross section. Achieved by a cotton swab characterized by being a fiber.

In the eccentric core-sheath type composite fiber in which the core component is partially exposed on the surface, the present invention specifies the combination of the core and the sheath component, the constituent ratio thereof, and the degree of exposure to the surface of the core part. Therefore, it is possible to provide a cotton swab suitable for practical cleaning using a composite fiber excellent in antistatic property and water absorption.

The conjugate fiber according to the present invention is an eccentric conjugate fiber having a fiber-forming resin as a sheath portion and a polyether block amide copolymer as a core portion.

The polyether block amide copolymer used for the core of the composite fiber according to the present invention includes, for example, (1) a polyamide unit having a diamine terminal and a polyoxyalkylene unit having a dicarboxylic acid group terminal, and (2) a dicarboxylic acid group. Polyamide diols having terminal ends and polyether diols, (3) Polyoxyalkylene units having polyamide units having dicarboxylic acid group ends and diamine ends (cyanoethylation and hydrogenation of polyoxyalkylenes having two hydroxyl groups at the α-position and ω-position) And a copolymer obtained by copolycondensation of a polyamide unit having a reactive end group and a polyether unit having a reactive end group. In the present invention, (2) is preferable and is represented by the following general formula.
HO— (CO—PA—CO—O—PE—O) _n —H
(In the formula, PA represents a polyamide unit (hard segment), PE represents a polyether unit (soft segment), and n represents a repeating unit.)
As the polyamide unit, nylon 6, nylon 6, 6, nylon 12 and the like are suitably used, and as the polyether unit, polyethylene glycol, polytetraethylene glycol and the like are suitably used.
As a commercially available product, Pebax (registered trademark) (manufactured by Arkema)
Among them, particularly good antistatic properties can be obtained by using Pebax MV1074 and MH1657.

Next, the fiber-forming resin constituting the sheath portion of the composite fiber according to the present invention may be a fiber-forming resin that can be melt-spun. Specific examples of such a resin include nylon 6 and nylon 66. Polyamides, polyethylene terephthalate, polybutylene terephthalate, polyethylene naphthalate, wholly aromatic polyesters, polyesters such as polylactic acid, polyolefins such as polyethylene and polypropylene, etc., or polymers based on these, as well as polyphenylene sulfide, polyethers Examples thereof include heat-resistant thermoplastic polymers such as ether ketone. Among them, it is preferable to use polyamide (particularly nylon 6) and polyester (particularly polyethylene terephthalate or polylactic acid).

The fiber cross-sectional shape of the composite fiber will be described below.
The eccentric composite fiber according to the present invention refers to a fiber in which the center of gravity of the fiber-forming resin and the polyether block amide copolymer is different in the cross section of the fiber in which a plurality of resins are combined.

Further, there may be a plurality of core portions made of a polyether block amide copolymer, and in this case, it is sufficient that the entire fiber is eccentric.

In the present invention, the exposure angle is a value obtained by drawing two straight lines from the center of the fiber cross section to the end of the exposed portion of the surface and measuring the angle between them, and there are a plurality of exposed portions. In this case, it is a value obtained by adding the angles of all exposed portions.
The angle of exposure of the polyether block amide copolymer to the surface needs to be 5 to 90 °, preferably 5 to 80 °. If the exposure angle is within this range, the water absorption and hygroscopicity are excellent.

The area ratio (ratio of cross-sectional area) of the core portion and the sheath portion of the composite fiber needs to be 95/5 to 5/95. Moreover, it is preferable that it is 90/10 or less from points, such as spinning productivity and post-processability. Furthermore, in terms of antistatic properties and water absorption, the area ratio (ratio of cross-sectional areas) between the core and the sheath is preferably 10/90 or more, and particularly preferably 20/80 or more.

The thickness (total fineness) of the composite fiber according to the present invention is preferably 1 to 150 dtex, more preferably 10 to 100 dtex. If it is less than 1 dtex, the spinning is difficult, the entanglement of the fibers in the surface layer part constituting the swab is poor, and the wiping performance tends to be inferior. Conversely, 150 dtex
If it exceeds 1, cotton balls are difficult to form, and the surface tends to fluff even after heat treatment.

The conjugate fiber of the present invention can be produced by using an ordinary conjugate type composite spinning device. It can be produced by a method of spinning at a normal speed of about 500 to 1500 m / min, followed by a drawing heat treatment, or a high speed spinning method such as a spin draw method.

The above-mentioned composite fiber is bundled in the filament shape of continuous long fibers and mechanically has a desired length of 60.
Cut into the following and supplied to the card process in the form of staple fiber.

The fiber length of the composite fiber according to the present invention is 60 mm or less. If the thickness exceeds 60 mm, fluff is formed on the surface when the cotton balls are formed and processed in a heated molding machine, and the fibers of the surface layer part constituting the cotton balls are not entangled and the wiping property is deteriorated.

The carding process is performed using a commonly used carding machine to obtain a sliver. The obtained sliver is further supplied to the drawing machine in a combined state of one or more, and is subjected to a predetermined draft action to be finished into a sliver having a desired weight.

In the present invention, U% of the sliver after the drawing process is 10.0% or less,
Is preferably 8.0 or less. For example, the U% of the sliver immediately after completion of the carding process is set to 5.0% or less, and the number of nips (ke / g) is set to 8.0 or less. % Or less, the Nep number (ke / g) can be 8.0 or less.

Examples of the method for producing a cotton swab using the sliver include the following methods.
That is, 2-20 in a molding machine in which a cotton ball is formed on one or both ends of a shaft body made of 1 mmφ paper, plastic or the like using a normal soldering apparatus and then heated to 110-200 ° C. By treating for 2 seconds, it is possible to obtain a cotton swab having a high wiping performance, free of fluff on the surface, intertwined with the fibers of the surface layer part constituting the cotton ball, and excellent in antistatic properties and water absorption.
The cotton swab obtained in this way can suppress the fluffing of the swab during the formation of the cotton ball without using any binders, and can prevent the fibers from falling off during use. In other words, by making the best use of thermoplasticity, which is a characteristic of the synthetic fibers that make up cotton swabs, and by forming the cotton balls at the desired temperature and for the desired time, they are extremely clean and have high wiping performance. A cotton swab suitable for is obtained.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be specifically described with reference to examples. The present invention is not limited to the examples.

Example 1
As a core component, polyether block amide copolymer (Pebax MV1 manufactured by Arkema Co., Ltd.)
074), using a polyamide (nylon 6, manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation) as a sheath component, an area ratio of 1:
Then, a 78 dtex / 24f drawn yarn (exposure angle 55 °) was obtained. The obtained drawn yarn was mechanically cut to form a staple having a fiber length of 38 mm and used as a raw fiber for the card process.
The cotton machine uses a flat card for cotton with a cover feeder, and cylinder 180
r · p · m, doffer 5r · p · m, gauge between top and cylinder 12/1000
It was set to inches and spun as a 4 g / m card sliver.
Conventionally, a fiber for producing spun yarn is required to have a fiber length of about 38 mm in terms of a draft mechanism in each spinning process. In this example, by setting the fiber length to 38 mm, even in the normal spun yarn production process, fiber entanglement in the card is avoided, and further, the speed of the doffer rotation is reduced and the sliver unit weight is suppressed. Thus, generation of neps was prevented, and a desired high-quality card sliver was obtained.

Three of the card sliver produced by the above process is simultaneously supplied to the drawing machine, and the spinning speed is 50 m / m.
In-draft was performed 12 times in to obtain an even sliver with few spots of 1 g / m. The sliver had a U% of 8.0% and a nep number of 6.0 (ke / g), which was of the same quality as a commonly used synthetic fiber sliver.

Next, by using the above sliver, a cotton ball is formed on both ends of a shaft body made of 1 mmφ paper using a squeezing device, and is processed in a molding machine heated to 140 ° C. for 3 seconds, A cotton swab was manufactured.
The obtained cotton swab has significantly improved water absorption performance and antistatic performance compared with conventional cotton products. In the manufacturing process of IC circuit board, liquid crystal, plasma substrate, silicon wafer, water, alcohol, It was extremely excellent in applications for suppressing solvent absorption and electrostatic performance such as acetone and hexane.

Each evaluation was performed by the following method about the Example product obtained above and a cotton swab made of natural cotton marketed as a comparative example product.

<Water absorption 1>
100 cotton swabs were immersed in a water temperature of 25 ° C. for 30 minutes, and the amount of weight increase after 30 minutes was measured. The results are shown in Table 1.
The water absorption of the cotton swabs of the examples was 4.2 times that of the cotton swabs of the comparative examples, indicating excellent water absorption.

<Water absorption 2>
100 cotton swabs were immersed in a water temperature of 25 ° C. for 60 seconds, and the amount of weight increase after 60 seconds was measured. The results are shown in Table 2.
The water absorption of the cotton swab of the example after 60 seconds was 7 times that of the cotton swab of the comparative example, and the water absorption was extremely excellent.

<Antistatic (friction withstand voltage)>
In an Example and a comparative example, a nonwoven fabric is created with a sliver and JIS L-1094-199.
7 Measured by friction band attenuation measurement method.
Friction voltage measurement: Electrostatic tester Friction cloth: Wool friction direction: Longitudinal direction, transverse direction temperature and humidity: 20 ° C x 33% RH

The cotton swab of the present invention is suitably used for cleaning fine parts in industrial fields such as silicon wafers and IC circuit boards.

Claims (1)

A cotton swab having a cotton ball composed of a composite fiber having a fiber length of 60 mm or less at at least one end of a shaft, wherein the composite fiber has a fiber-forming resin as a sheath portion and a polyether block amide copolymer as a core. It is an eccentric composite fiber in which the area ratio of the core part to the sheath part is 5/95 to 95/5, and the exposure angle to the surface of the core part is 5 to 90 ° in the fiber cross section. Cotton swab that features.