Abstract
The degradation of nylon-6 fibers treated with peroxide bleaching agents have been studied. Some physical properties of the nylon-6 filament yarn bleached with sodium percarbonate; the initial young's modulus, the tensile strength and the elongation at break and the decomposition rate of the peroxide bleaching agent under the various conditions, were measured. In addition, the degraded fibers owing to the bleaching were observed by an optical and a scanning electron microscopy. It was found that a metal contained in nylon-6 fibers, especially a copper metal fairly accelerated the decomposition rate of the peroxide bleaching agent in an aqueous solution. However, coexistence of a non-ionic surfactant controlled the decomposition rate. The repeated bleaching of nylon-6 filament yarns changed the configuration of a stress-strain curve of the fiber and decreased the initial yonug's modulus accompanied by the decrease of tensile strength at break.
Scanning electron micrographs of degraded nylon-6 fibers showed that the surface roughness increased with the repeated bleaching and that the characteristic crack occured perpendicular to the fiber axis.
