Claims
- 1. An oil spill clean-up product formed by a process comprising:
- mixing thermoplastic polymeric material with thermoplastic poly(vinyl alcohol), extruding the resultant mixture through a die, followed by subjecting the mixture to an orientation step, chopping the extruded oriented material into desired lengths, extracting the thermoplastic poly(vinyl alcohol) to produce ultra-fine polymeric fibers, and thereafter processing the ultra-fine polymeric fibers into said oil spill clean-up product.
- 2. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein said processing comprises pulping the ultra-fine polymeric fibers into a mat.
- 3. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein said thermoplastic polymeric material is selected from the group consisting of polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene, styrene copolymers, poly(vinyl chloride), ethylene copolymers and mixtures thereof.
- 4. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein said thermoplastic polymeric material is post-consumer polymeric scrap.
- 5. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein a defoaming agent is added to the polymeric material/poly(vinyl alcohol) mixtures.
- 6. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein the poly(vinyl alcohol) is extracted from the polymeric fibers by agitation in a water slurry.
- 7. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein the extracted poly(vinyl alcohol) is recycled and reused in this process.
- 8. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein the thermoplastic poly(vinyl alcohol) is formed by adding a plasticizer to poly(vinyl alcohol).
- 9. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 8 wherein said plasticizer is glycerine.
- 10. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein said thermoplastic poly(vinyl alcohol) is from 72-99% hydrolyzed.
- 11. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein said thermoplastic poly(vinyl alcohol) is from 78-94% hydrolyzed.
- 12. The oil spill clean-up product of claim 1 wherein the mixture resulting from said mixing of thermoplastic polymeric material with thermoplastic poly(vinyl alcohol) contains between 20% and 80% thermoplastic poly(vinyl alcohol) b weight.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 07/682,168, filed Apr. 5, 1991, now pending.
US Referenced Citations (4)
Foreign Referenced Citations (3)
Number |
Date |
Country |
40-72398 |
Nov 1965 |
JPX |
47-67754 |
Jul 1972 |
JPX |
1206257 |
Sep 1970 |
GBX |
Non-Patent Literature Citations (1)
Entry |
K. C. Stueben & W. Sommer, Polysulfone Papers from Immiscible Polymer Mixtures, Jan. 1978, pp. 85-87. |
Continuation in Parts (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
682168 |
Apr 1991 |
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