JP4930985B2 - Manufacturing method and product of fiber material with functional fine particles fixed - Google Patents

Description

The present invention produces flexible fiber materials by generating voids between fibers with hot water and adhering functional fine particles such as antibacterial agents to the surface of the flexible fibers without using an adhesive. Regarding the method.
More specifically, the present invention uses a sliver in which wet-heat bonded fibers are arranged in parallel to form voids due to crimp contraction generated by hot water, and at least some of the fine particles are wet-heat bonded to the surface of the fiber material. It relates to a method for producing a flexible fiber material in which a large number of protrusions due to fine particles protrude from the surface of the fiber so that the original function of each fine particle is exhibited.

Conventionally, fiber products utilizing the inherent function of fine particles by fixing fine particles having a functional effect to the fiber are known. However, as a conventional technique for fixing fine particles to the fiber, mixing is performed in the fiber. Thus, means for spinning and means for fixing to the fiber surface are known.
The former mixed spinning includes, for example, JP-A Nos. 03-205436 and 62-195037, and there is a method in which fine particles of a silver antibacterial agent having a size of 5 μm or less are mixed with a synthetic fiber polymer and then spun. .

In addition to the complexity of the manufacturing process, the conventional means for adhering to the fine particle fibers described above causes many of the antibacterial fine particles to remain inside the fiber by mixed spinning, and bleeding of the necessary antibacterial fine particles on the fiber surface is caused. Therefore, there is a problem that the antibacterial effect is hardly exhibited when the drug gradually exudes to the outside.
In the latter post-processing, a method of supporting the fiber product using an adhesive is generally used, and typically, there is a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 02-021916. However, this technique has the disadvantages that fine particles are embedded in an adhesive and the effect of the functional agent is low, and the texture is cured by the adhesive.
Further, according to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 59-037956 and 63-175117, silver antibacterial agent particles are fixed by melting low-melting fibers using a fiber structure containing low-melting synthetic fibers. A hot melt fixing method has also been proposed, but this technique has many bleeding of silver antibacterial agent fine particles, and the original function of bleeding can be expected, but the adjacent fibers are fused and solidified by melting the low melting point fibers used. There is a drawback that the texture of the product becomes hard.
As described above, there is a keen desire for a fine particle fixing method that is suitable for fine particle bleeding and can be processed into a soft texture, but is not yet known.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 03-205436 JP-A-62-195037 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 02-021916 JP 59-037956 JP-A-63-175117

In the application of the above-described prior art, it is intended to obtain durability when fine particles, particularly fine particles having a function such as silver antibacterial agent, antifungal agent, whitening agent, skin moisturizer, or the like are fixed to the fiber surface. Thus, the fine particles are encapsulated in the adhesive, and the fine particles do not protrude from the surface of the fiber, so that the original function of the functional particles is not exhibited.
For example, in the case of silver antibacterial agents, if silver antibacterial agent particles are encapsulated in the adhesive, the effect of antibacterial functionality will not be obtained, but the purpose of using silver antibacterial agent particles is inherently unique. For this purpose, it is necessary to exert antibacterial effects by projecting some of the fine particles of the silver antibacterial agent outward.
However, sticking by hot melt using low melting point fibers results in fusion of adjacent fibers by melting of low melting point fibers, and even though there is the original effect of fine particles, low melting point fibers are used. Therefore, the number of contacts is increased in the thermal fusion of the fiber filaments, and the obtained fiber product has a drawback that the texture is inevitably poor and hard.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to realize a manufacturing method of a fiber material that is a fiber product having a soft texture while maintaining the original protruding effect by fine particles, which is a conventional desire.

In the present invention, in order to process the fiber material flexibly, using a sliver in which wet and heat adhesive fibers are arranged in parallel as a raw material, the sliver forms a crimp by thermal contraction by hydrothermal treatment, By generating voids, the fiber material will exhibit flexibility, and furthermore, a part of the fine particles will adhere to the surface of the fiber material by wet heat bonding, so a part of the fine particles protrude to the outside and become fine particles. The fiber material obtained can be made soft and flexible while exhibiting its original function.
In the present invention, it is made possible by using a sliver of wet heat adhesive fibers consisting of two parts, a skin and a core, and the skin part of the fiber is made of an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer and the core part is made of polyester. Even with hot water treatment, the fiber surface has adhesiveness, but the entire fiber is not melted.

That is, the present invention is characterized by the following configuration in order to solve the above problems.
The method for producing a flexible fiber material in which protrusions of many functional fine particles protrude from the fiber surface of the invention according to claim 1 includes a sliver in which wet heat adhesive fibers are arranged in parallel in a dispersion of functional fine particles. A fiber product made of a fiber material is immersed, drawn and dried, the functional fine particles are temporarily fixed to the fiber material, subjected to hot water treatment, and the fiber material is crimped by the hot water treatment to cause the fiber to shrink. A void is formed between the materials, and at least a part of the functional fine particles is wet-heat bonded to the surface of the fiber material.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for producing a flexible fiber material in which protrusions of many functional fine particles protrude from a fiber surface, wherein the wet heat adhesive fiber is formed of two parts, a skin and a core. Is an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer, and the core is polyester.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for producing a flexible fiber material in which protrusions of a large number of functional fine particles protrude from the fiber surface, wherein the functional fine particles are silver antibacterial agent fine particles, zinc pyrithione fine particles, cosmetic fine particles, and skin. It is characterized by being selected from microcapsule fine particles or quartz porphyry fine particles of a drug imparting functionality.
The textile product of the invention according to claim 4 is formed from a fiber material obtained by the method according to any one of claims 1 to 3.
The fiber product of the invention according to claim 5 is selected from a nonwoven fabric, a woven fabric, a knit, a pile woven fabric, or a pile knit.

As a wet heat adhesive fiber material used in the present invention, “Sofista” (Kuraray Co., Ltd.) is used as a representative material. In the present invention, the surface of the fiber is brought into particular due to the presence of hot water of these fibers. The physical properties having the adhesive property can be utilized.
Such wet heat adhesive fibers have a skin part made of an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer and a core part made of polyester, and are often used as a raw material for producing woven fabrics and knits. In the present invention, the single yarn fineness is 2Dtex. 500Dtex and 250Dtex sliver, especially 100% sliver or mixed with other fibers and used as a sliver, a sliver having a rough texture with little convergence is preferred.
In the present invention, a sliver pile knit can produce a sponge for a flexible body that imparts antibacterial properties to a spongy structure and wets it to obtain a product that does not generate odor by drying in the shade.

In the present invention, in order to apply and temporarily fix fine particles of 5 μm or less to the surface of such wet heat-adhesive fibers, a step of immersing, drawing, and drying the wet heat-adhesive fiber product in the fine particle dispersion is required. However, the above-described temporary fixing of the fine particles does not require the use of an adhesive, and known thickeners such as starch, mannan, microbially produced glucan, and PVA can be used as the dispersion stabilizer.
In addition, the hot water treatment in the present invention can be performed at 90 ° C. or more for 20 to 30 minutes, or can be performed in a short time using a microwave.
If only wet heat-adhesive fibers are used as the fiber material, if hot water treatment is performed with the fibers converged, they will be cured by adhesion between the fibers, so the wet heat-adhesive fibers are aligned by a sliver arranged in parallel. It is possible to obtain flexibility by generating voids between the fibers by the hot water treatment.

  FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing the state of adhesion of fine particles to the fiber material of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a fiber, 2 is a fine particle such as a silver-based antibacterial agent fine particle, and 3 is due to thermal fixation between fibers. The contact intersection 4 is a space between the fibers. In the present invention, since there are few heat fusion intersections, there is flexibility, and the texture is excellent.

The fine particles used in the present invention are fine particles such as silver antibacterial agent fine particles, zinc pyrithione fine particles, cosmetic fine particles, microcapsule fine particles or quartz porphyry fine particles of a drug imparting functionality to the skin, and have a size of 5 μm or less. In the case of fine particles having a size of 5 μm or more, it is not preferable for fixing to the thickness 2Dtex of the wet heat bonding fiber.
As silver-based antibacterial particles, silver zeolite has Zeomic (product of Sinanen Zeomic Co., Ltd.), silver glass has Million Killer (product of Koa Glass Co., Ltd.), and silver zirconium phosphate has Novalon (Toa Gosei Co., Ltd.). Product).
Water-insoluble fine particles such as zinc pyrithione (ZPT) can be fixed to obtain an antifungal effect.
Microcapsule microparticles containing drugs that have whitening, moisturizing and skin care effects on the skin include microcapsule microparticles containing vitamins, antioxidants, moisturizers, etc. It can also be used.
Quartz porphyry fine particles have a far-infrared effect and an effect of K-40, and can be used for clothing to obtain a wet heat effect and a substantial improvement.

  The present invention has been a long-standing desire for fixing functional fine particles to textile products, and many fine particle protrusions protrude from the fiber surface, and the original functions of the fine particles, such as antibacterial agents, whitening agents, moisturizing agents, etc. It is possible to achieve a flexible process that can sufficiently exhibit many functions and effects such as an agent, an antioxidant, and the like. It is an effect of the present invention that a textile product in contact with the skin such as a body sponge, an underwear, a hospital nightcloth, a supporter, and the like can be flexible to the skin.

(Examples 1-3)
A gauze fabric using a sliver having a single yarn fineness of 2Dtex250Dtex of wet heat adhesive fiber as weft and polyester yarn 80Dtex / 40f as warp is used.
Meanwhile, a dispersion is prepared by dispersing 1% by weight of functional fine particles in an aqueous solution in which 2% by weight of PVA is dissolved.
In Example 1, zeomic (particle diameter 5 μm) is used as silver zeolite in Example 1, million killer (particle diameter 3 μm) is used as silver glass in Example 2, and zinc pyrithione (particle diameter 2 μm) is used in Example 3. .
In the dispersion prepared above, the functional fine particles were immersed in a dispersion in which 1% by weight of each was dispersed, squeezed, dried at 70 ° C., and silver antibacterial fine particles were assumed on the gauze fabric.
Next, the gauze dough on which the obtained silver antibacterial agent fine particles were assumed was put in hot water heated to 95 ° C., treated with hot water for 20 minutes and dried.
After drying, a soft and antibacterial fabric could be obtained.
The antibacterial effect was as shown in Table 1.
“0hr” in the table is the initial number of inoculated bacteria, and “12hr” indicates the number of bacteria after 12 hours as “antibacterial effect”. Moreover, the reason why the effect of the antibacterial agent as the functional fine particles is shown in the examples is that the quality of the bleeding of the fine particles can be expressed specifically by the antibacterial effect.
In addition, when the influence with respect to the blank microorganisms which do not adhere an antibacterial agent as a comparative example is shown, in E. coli, the inoculation number of 1.0 × 10 ⁴ (0 hr) is increased to 3.2 × 10 ¹² after 12 hours, In S. aureus, the number of inoculations of 1.3 × 10 ⁴ (0 hr) is increased to 2.5 × 10 ¹³ after 12 hours. From this, it was found that when the antibacterial agent is not fixed, the microorganisms grow and are vulnerable to contamination.

It is a conceptual diagram of the adhering state of the fine particles to the fiber material of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 Fiber 2 Fine particle 3 Contact intersection 4 Space

Claims (5)

The functional fine particles are temporarily fixed to the fiber material by immersing, squeezing and drying a fiber product made of a fiber material containing a sliver in which wet-heat adhesive fibers are arranged in parallel in a dispersion of functional fine particles. And performing hydrothermal treatment to produce voids between the fiber materials by crimp contraction of the fiber materials by the hydrothermal treatment , and at least a part of the functional fine particles are wet-heat bonded to the surface of the fiber material. A method for producing a flexible fiber material in which many functional fine particle protrusions protrude from the fiber surface.   2. The flexible fiber material according to claim 1, wherein the wet heat adhesive fiber is formed of two parts, a skin and a core, wherein the skin part is an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer and the core part is polyester. Manufacturing method.   The functional fine particles are selected from silver antibacterial agent fine particles, zinc pyrithione fine particles, cosmetic fine particles, microcapsule fine particles of a drug imparting functionality to skin, or quartz porphyry fine particles. The manufacturing method of the flexible fiber raw material of 1 or 2.   A fiber product formed from a fiber material obtained by the method according to claim 1. Nonwoven, fabrics, textile products according to claim 4, characterized in that knit, Ru is selected from the pile woven or pile knit.