New Water Soluble Polysaccharide Crosslinkers: Synthesis, Viscometric Studies about the Crosslinking R.eaction and Characterization of Crosslinked Products

Besides its growing impact on the Chemical fiber market, the amine Oxide process, employing a melt of N-methyl-morpholine-N-Oxide (NMMNO) as solvent for cellulose, is both a Stimulus to research in cellulose structure formation from Solution and a catalyst in getting People from fundamental and applied research together for joint effort [ 11. It is well known that cellulosic fibers of the ,,Lyocell“ type, i.e., fibers spun from cellulose-NMMNO solutions, are provided with extraordinary clothingphysiological properties. However, they may posses a high wet fibrillation tendency which is undesired for textiles with good wash and wear properties [ 21. There are different approaches for reducing the fibrillation tendency. On one hand, the Variation in the spinning technology and, on the other, Chemical modifications of the cellulosic fibers by crosslinking may be appropriate to improve the fiber quality. Crosslinking agents reinforte among other things the linkage between the crystalline ranges and hence the dimensional stability, which tan be result in a reduced wet abrasion tendency. Numerous crosslinking agents, as for instance triacryloyl-hexahydro1,3,5triazine and N,N’-methylene-bisacrylamide, have been used [3]. Moreover, polyfunctional reactive dyestuff tan also influence the fibrillability of NMMNO fibers [4, 51. In our studies water soluble precursors of divinyl sulfone (DVS) derivatives with various spacers between the reactive Vinyl moieties were synthesized and the influence of the molecular structure of these crosslinkers on the wet abrasion tendency of the treated cellulose fibers using wet abrasion number was investigated [6]. For characterization of the crosslinking efficiency, hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) was used as a model compound and the crosslinking reaction was evaluated by means of smallamplitude oscillatory measurements [7].