Basic Studies on Contamination of Formaldehyde to Fabrics Packed by Polymeric Films

Abstract

Polymeric films are often employed as packing materials to prevent the contamination of formaldehyde (HCHO) to a fabric. The effects of chemical structure and super-structure of polymeric films on the anticontamination of formaldehyde to a fabric were examined for the variouskinds of polymeric films. For this purpose, two kinds of measurements were carried out. One is a bag method which enables to measure the contamination of HCHO to a wool fabric packed in polymeric films. Another is a cup method, devised for the determination of the permeability of HCHO through a polymeric films placed on a brim of the cup by measuring the absorption of HCHO into water in the cup.
The results obtained are as follows:
(1) The amount of contamination to the wool fabrics increased in proportional to an exposure time.
(2) Among the polymeric films used in this study, the PVDC-coated OPP film was most effective to anticontamination of HCHO.
(3) The permeability of HCHO was satisfactorily determined by the cup method, but the effect of the moisture content must be taken into acount.
(4) The permeability coefficient (P) of HCHO for the hydrophobic polymeric films are satisfactorily estimated from the value of“Permachor” (π) by the following equation:
P=1.86×10^-7e^-0.111π
(5) The permeability coefficient of HCHO was strongly dependent upon the moisture content in a film for every kinds of hydrophilic polymers.
(6) The values of the permeability determined by the cup method were always higher than those by the bag method. However, the both methods gave the same sequence order in permeabilities for the polymeric films used in this study.