Patent Application
20190323152
The present disclosure relates to an improved process for manufacturing an ultra-soft fabric and the fabric thereof. In particular, the disclosure relates to a blended fabric of cellulose and multi-filament polyester fabric with enhanced quality and durability.
Certain forms of workwear, including that for use in conditions of high abrasion, have been found to wear very quickly. This is particularly true for workwear intended for use in sandy conditions. It is known that cellulosic fibers such as cotton, viscose rayon or lyocell can be made into garments which have a high level of comfort. This is because the garments absorb moisture and have a cool comfortable touch. However cellulosic pure garments do not have a very high level of abrasion resistance.
Lyocell is a generic name for a man-made cellulosic fiber produced without the formation of a derivative from a solution of cellulose in an aqueous organic compound, normally N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO). Lyocell has a much higher tenacity than regular viscose. While lyocell in the conditioned state normally shows a tenacity at break of about 37 cN/tex, regular viscose under the same conditions shows a tenacity at break lower than 25, but strongly depending on the individual production process.
Another man-made cellulosic fiber besides lyocell is modal, which is produced by a modified viscose process. Modal is a high-tenacity man-made cellulosic fiber, too, as it shows a tenacity at break of about 35 cN/tex in the conditioned state. According to the definition of the BISFA Modal fibers are cellulose fibers having a high breaking force and a high wet modulus. The breaking force (Bc) of a modal fiber in the conditioned state is Bc(cN)≥1.3√T+2T. The force (Bm) required to produce an elongation of 5% in the wet state of a modal fiber is Bm(cN)≥0.5√T. T is the mean linear density in decitex
Nylon-6.6, for comparison, has a break tenacity of about 56 cN/tex and cotton of about 25 cN/tex.
In addition to the cotton and nylon fabrics used by the Army, certain nylon/lyocell fabrics have been produced on an experimental basis. These nylon/lyocell fabrics have been produced by weaving a lyocell weft into a continuous filament nylon warp. Although lyocell is produced as a staple fiber, and spun into yarns to enable it to be woven or knitted to form garments, this is not the case for nylon. Much nylon is made as continuous filament material which is made up into warps. A warp is effectively a set of threads which are wound round a cylinder and placed on a loom before weaving begins. The weft thread is passed backwards and forwards though the warp often using a shuttle. Warps require to be made up before weaving can begin and warps of continuous nylon filaments were available. The experimental fabrics were made by weaving a lyocell tread as a weft through the continuous filament nylon warps. Such fabrics have not been commercially used on any scale and were made purely as an experiment. Nylon staple fibers, i.e. fibers cut to a definite length after extrusion and spun to yarns, were never used for this application.
Compared to classical, spun cotton yarns and mixed yarns in which the core yarn is made of polyester and the effect yarn is made of cotton, synthetic yarns, especially the widely used polyester yarns can be advantageously made as continuous yarn with hardly any impurities and display a significantly increased strength. Synthetic yarns have however the drawback that they are less fluffy and thus exhibit a more wire-like character and are substantially harder in handle than cotton yarns or mixed yarns. Accordingly, various defects will be caused during actual application of the synthetic yarns.
Existing processes not only leads to long duration in a production cycle but also add to the cost to the manufacturer making the entire process less efficient. The proposed inventionmakes possible the production of low purchasing cost, high extensibility and breaking resistance of lyocell. It has been extruded and pre-stretched in a heated container. The extrusion and hot drawing process results to round yarns, the material of which is perfectly homogenized. In addition, powerful and balanced tensions develop on yarn surfaces. These factors result to the production of very thin yarns of high elasticity and breaking resistance.
Existing processes for manufacturing a lyocell fabric is very expensive and the fabrics are not very durable. Existing processes also has a very long process and is not very efficient, therefore there is a need in the art to develop a process for preparation of lyocellfabric with an improved and simplified process which significantly reduces the time cycle in a production cycle and also increase the durability as compared to existing methods. Moreover, such process must also significantly improve the purity and output by a significant amount. It would also be desirable to reduce the ecological and toxicological problems arising from the existing methods. Lastly, such process must be cost-effective.
These and all other intrinsic and extrinsic materials discussed herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Unless the context dictates the contrary, all ranges set forth herein should be interpreted as being inclusive of their endpoints and open-ended ranges should be interpreted to include commercially practical values. Similarly, all lists of values should be considered as inclusive of intermediate values unless the context indicates the contrary.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a textile fabric which has a good balance between comfort for the wearer of garments made from the fabric and a good abrasion and tear resistance. Obtaining a good level of either softness or comfort or wear and tear resistance is something which is easily done. It is however much more difficult to obtain both in a fabric, as the fabric properties required for softness, good comfort and the fabric properties required for good wear and tear resistance are often mutually exclusive.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a textile fabric made using 100% cellulose in warp and 100% multi filament polyester in weft, to give the comfort of 100% lyocell on the face of the fabric by using warp faced weaving structure. The cellulose blend will be varying from 40% to 80% and the multi filament polyester component will vary from 20% to 60%. The fabric is finished with a resin finishing and curing processing technology to give an excellent hand feel and shine. Another object of the present invention is to provide significantly increased durability.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a textile fabric which comprises of one or more cellulose fiber warp yarns ranging from 100 to 235 ends per inch and one or more multi-filament polyester weft yarns ranging from 60 to 1300 picks per inch, wherein the picks are woven into the textile fabric in groups of at least one multi filament polyester weft yarns running parallel to each other.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved process for manufacturing an ultra-soft textile fabric. The process includes the step of 1) selecting one or more cellulose fiber and polyester fiber yarns; 2) mixing the fibers with different parameters at a pre-determined percentage; 3) parallelizing the fibers for uniform mixing; 4) processing the fibers for critical percentage of parallization; 5) drafting and spinning the fibers using RoCoS compact technology; 6) winding on cones with one or more cone hardness; 7) warping and sizing the cellulose fiber yarns with one or more chemical recipes; 8) weaving the textile fabric with lyocell warp and polyester weft yarn; 9) processing the fabric with a Manforts E-control technology; and 10) finishing the fabric to achieve dimensional stability and increased durability.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a polyester micro filament which is introduced in to the weft incorporating wrinkle resistance.
It is another object of the present invention to provide the ultra-soft fabric which can overcome the limitation of higher thread count of 100% lyocell products.
It is another object of the present invention to provide increased durability for the 100% lyocell which can withstand more wash cycles.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide cost effectiveness for the manufacturing process of 100% lyocell.
Additional aspects of the disclosure will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the disclosure. The aspects of the disclosure will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the disclosure, as claimed.
In the Figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label with a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.
Embodiments herein and the various features and advantageous details thereof are explained more fully with reference to the non-limiting embodiments that are illustrated in the accompanying figures and detailed in the following description. Descriptions of well-known components and processing techniques are omitted so as to not unnecessarily obscure the embodiments herein. The examples used herein are intended merely to facilitate an understanding of ways in which the embodiments herein may be practiced and to further enable those of skill in the art to practice the embodiments herein. Accordingly, the examples should not be construed as limiting the scope of the embodiments herein.
Embodiments of the present invention include various steps, which will be described below. The steps may be performed by hardware components or may be embodied in machine-executable instructions, which may be used to cause a general-purpose or special-purpose programmed or embedded with the instructions to perform the steps. Alternatively, the steps may be performed by a combination of hardware, embedded systems, software, firmware and/or by human operators.
In an embodiment of the present invention, a textile fabric is made from using 100% cellulose in warp and 100% multi filament polyester in weft, to give the comfort of 100% lyocell on the face of the fabric by using warp faced weaving structure. The cellulose blend will be varying from 40% to 80% and the multi filament polyester component will be varying from 20% to 60%. The fabric is finished with a resin finishing and curing processing technology, to give an excellent hand feel and shine. Another object of the present invention is to provide significantly increased durability.
Durability means the assurance that a material will have a relatively long continuous useful life, without requiring an inordinate degree of maintenance. The textile fabric will have the ability to exist for a long period of time without significant deterioration by resisting the effects of heavy use, drying, wetting, heating and freezing.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a textile fabric which comprises of one or more cellulose fiber warp yarns ranging from 100 to 235 ends per inch; and one or more multi-filament polyester weft yarns ranging from 60 to 1300 picks per inch; wherein the picks are woven into the fabric in groups of at least one multi filament polyester weft yarns running parallel to each other.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the aqueous solution of an alkali metal hydroxide additionally comprises an alkali metal silicate at a concentration in the range from 1 to 50, preferably from 5 to 20, grams per liter (calculated as anhydrous sodium metasilicate Na2Si03).
In another embodiment of the present invention, the bundles of tow are taken to a crimper, a machine that compresses the fiber, giving it texture and bulk. The crimped fiber is carded by mechanical carders, which perform an action like combing, to separate and order the strands. The carded strands are cut and baled for shipment to a fabric mill. The entire manufacturing process, from unrolling the raw cellulose to baling the fiber, takes about two hours. After this, the lyocell fiber may be processed in many ways. It may be spun with another fiber, such as cotton or wool. The resulting yarn can be woven or knitted like any other fabric, and may be given a variety of finishes, from soft and suede-like to silky.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the amine oxide used to dissolve the cellulose and set the fiber after spinning is recycled. 98% of the amine oxide is typically recovered. Since there is little waste product, this process is relatively eco-friendly. However, it uses a substantial amount of energy, and uses an organic solvent of petrochemical origin.
In another embodiment of the present invention, properties of lyocell fiber is described such as, but not limited to soft, absorbent, very strong when wet or dry, and resistant to wrinkles, can be machine washed or dry-cleaned, can be dyed many colors, and can simulate a variety of textures such as suede, leather, and silk
In an embodiment of the present invention, the heddle 310 and 312 is used to control up and down movement of the warp yarn.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the harness 306 and 308 is used to route collection of heddle 310 and 312 according to their function.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a shed is formed by the harness 308 and 306 and used for allowing weft yarn. The shed is the temporary separation between upper and lower warp yarns through which the weft is woven. The shed is created to make it easy to interlace the weft into the warp and thus create woven fabric. Furthermore, the shed can be formed on the principle but not limited to tappet, dobby and jacquard shedding mechanism.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the shuttle less rapier loom 316 is enabled to insert the weft yarn through the warp shed. The working principle of this weft insertion device can be selected from but not limited to air jet, projectile rapier and rapier jet.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the reed 314 is used to push the weft yarn securely into place as it is woven; it also separates the warp threads and holds them in their position and keeping them untangled.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the extremely high amount of water required for cotton immediately can grab out attention. Compared to cotton, lyocell reveals lower consumption factors in both cases. Lyocell requires only half the amount of chemicals which are not as environmentally harmful by far since cotton for example requires a share of these chemicals to protect it from pests—environmentally harmful and health-hazardous chemicals such as pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers are still necessary—which makes it necessary to test the cotton prior to its use. LENZING lyocell easily complies with the Okotex 100 Standard. After examining the toxicological data for the solvent and comparing the former with the data for natural fibers, the customer in the textile industry can be sure that he is processing an ecologically perfect fabric.
Creating Handle:
It is exceedingly difficult to make an objective measurement of the handle of a fabric. In addition, different cultures perceive touch in different ways. Kawabata introduced an objective evaluation of touch in 1968 developed on the basis of how the Japanese experience touch. In the meantime the method he developed is increasingly gaining in recognition and popularity. With the help of special measuring devices this system ascertains 20 different important fabric properties (examples: stretching work, recovery capacity, maximum breaking elongation, shearing resistance, bending rigidity, bending hysteresis height, compressibility, thickness, coefficient of friction) including mass per unit area as the 21st Parameter. Factors emerge from these measurements which clearly mirror the way the Japanese feel about touch but also provide excellent figures for reasons of comparison almost making it possible to quantify the subjective way handle is perceived. At this juncture, four important handle properties will be more clearly defined.
0 Koshi:
Rigid and elasticity handle parameters in which bending rigidity dominates. Springiness promotes this feeling of handle. Fabrics with a higher density and those containing elastic yarns promote this feeling of handle.
0 Numeri:
Pliable smoothness a feeling of handle which contains several components including pliability and smoothness as well as softness.
0 Fukurami:
Fullness and softness reflects the bulkiness and fullness of a fabric, elastic properties with respect to compressibility and thickness. This parameter is closely connected to sensations such as the flow of heat.
0 Sofutasa:
A soft handle: This term comprises Koshi, Numeri and Fukurami. It is an important overall impression for fabrics intended for ladies outwear. It is primarily the smoothness which is expressed. Experiments were now conducted with comparable fabrics made of cotton and LENZING lyocell with a mass per unit area of 150 g/mZ, i.8, the same mass per unit area, yarn count and structure.
There is also a difference in handling between the yarns made of fibers of different counts, which becomes clear when comparing LENZING lyocell 1.7 dtex with 1.3 dtex. Therefore, the conclusion arrived at is that, with respect to handle properties, lyocell is closer to cotton than viscose when desized.
Easy Care Behavior:
In all cellulosic fibers the Utility values required are reached using Cross-linking chemicals. One essential point is the crease recovery angle of lyocell which commences at a very high level in the desized fabric and can, using low amounts of resin concentrations, be raised to a level unparalleled by viscose with more than double the concentration of resin.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a textile fabric comprises one or more cellulose fiber warp yarns ranging from 100 to 235 ends per inch and one or more multi-filament polyester weft yarns ranging from 60 to 1300 picks per inch, wherein the picks are woven into the fabric in groups of at least one multi filament polyester weft yarns running parallel to each other.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the thread counts per square inch can vary from 200 thread to 1500 thread. The total of warp and weft thread counts/sq. inch represents the TC (thread count). So increasing warp thread from 100 to 250 based on the product requirement and weft thread count will be from 80 to 1350 thread/square inch. For instance, 600 TC warp threads will be 185 and weft threads will be 400/sq. inch. The tolerance will be 3%, so it maintains 585 threads per square inch in a 600 tc product.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the warp percentage in the fabric and weft percentage in the fabric will vary depending on the T. For instance, from 500 to 1000 tc, it is kept warp thread/sq. inch as 185 and kept increasing weft thread count to meet 700 tc, 800 tc, 900 tc products. So, the warp percentage will start reducing from 500 to 1000 tc and polyester weft content will increase from 500 to 1000 tc.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the warp count will start from 30 s and goes up to 120 s depends on the TC requirement and the type of product desired. For instance, lyocell rich (higher lyocell content), min 51% or polyester rich (lyocell max 49%).
In another embodiment of the present invention, the textile fabric gives more comfort to skin than cotton and at the same time is more durable than cotton. The textile fabric is more absorbent than cotton and polyester filament which gives durability to this textile fabric by using filament hardness more than 70.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the textile fabric offers thread count per square inch from 200 to 1400, with warp ends per inch from 132 to 225 and weft picks per inch from 100 to 1200. The warp count from Ne 30 s to 120 s lyocell and weft filament from 15 Denier to 300 Denier.
The woven textile fabric may have a warp to fill ratio 1:2 to 1:4 and the weave shall be from 1/1, 2/1/3/1, 4/1 or its modification and, dobby, jacquard weaves
In another embodiment of the present invention, the yarn which is selected but not limited to the polyester (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyamide (nylon, polyamide 6, polyamide 66), polypropylene, polyacrylonitrile, and lyocell.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the multi-filament polyester weft yarns are wound extensively, which are parallel to one another and extensively adjacent to one another on a multi pick yarn package to enable simultaneous inserting of the multi-filament polyester weft yarns a single pick insertion event of a pick insertion apparatus of a loom apparatus.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the number of the multi-filament polyester weft yarns are conveyed by the pick insertion apparatus through a set of “o” warp yarns in the single pick insertion event of the pick insertion apparatus of the loom apparatus is between two and eight.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the multi-filament polyester weft yarns are wound on the multi pick yarn package at an angle between 15 and 20 degrees to enable the simultaneous inserting of the multi filament polyester weft yarns during the single pick insertion event of the pick insertion apparatus of the loom apparatus.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the multi-filament polyester weft yarns are wound on the multi pick yarn package at a type a shore hardness of between 65 and 70 to enable the simultaneous inserting of the multi filament polyester weft yarns during the single pick insertion event of the pick insertion apparatus of the loom apparatus.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the cellulose fiber is selected but not limited to lyocell and modal.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the multi filament polyester fiber includes but not limited to fiber selected from the group consisting of nylon, cotton, rayon, acetate, triacetate, wool, silk, linen, flax, polyamide, polyacrylonitrile, polypropylene, aromatic polyamide, renewable cellulose fiber, natural or artificial staple fiber and combinations thereof.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the textile fabric is eco-friendly in nature and can support sustainability.
Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described herein, the above description is merely illustrative. Further modification of the invention herein disclosed will occur to those skilled in the respective arts and all such modifications are deemed to be within the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
