*2.2.2. Polypropylene*

**•** Home Furnishings: Carpets, curtains, draperies, sheets and pillowcases, wall coverings, and

**•** Other Uses: Hoses, power belting, ropes and nets, threads, tire cords, auto upholstery, sails, floppy disk liners, and fiberfill for various products including pillows and furniture.

Surgeons' gowns,for example, were once woven from linen but are now forthe most part made from repellant-treated entangled polyester fiber pulp composites on spun-bond melt-blown laminates. These new gowns are far superior to the older material in providing a breathable barrier between the surgeon and the patient, which serves to significantly reduce hospital infections. Spun-lace mattress pad facing (100% polyester) continues to be the replacement for spun-bonded material because of the textile-like character of entangled fiber fabrics. Polyeth‐

upholstery; and

**Figure 4.** Cross-sectional View of Polyester Fibers [23]

**Figure 3.** Polyester Fibers [6]

8 Non-woven Fabrics

The fibers from polypropylene were introduced to the textile arena in the 1970's and have become an important member of the rapidly growing family of synthetic fibers.

Polypropylene is generally available as chips or granules which are white in color and are semicrystalline. Polypropylene fibers are produced by a larger variety of processes than any other melt-spun fibers. The general physical properties of polypropylene fibers are shown in Table 1.

Polypropylene has established itself as a very useful industrial and household fiber. However, it has not made a very significant impact in the apparel sector mainly due to its hydrophobicity lock of dyeability and slightly waxy handle. Polypropylene nonwovens are increasingly being used as filter fabrics for wet filtration in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Industrial applications also include medical and surgical disposables [14,28].


**Table 1.** Polypropylene physical properties [14]

Advantages of PP fibers for nonwoven fabrics are [12,14] as follows:


Disadvantages of polypropylene fibers [14] are as follows:


There are only half-dozen manufacturers of polyester spunbonded fabrics in the world, and the bulk of such fabrics are made from both isotactic polypropylene polymers. This is conduct by the cost and ease of procedure of polypropylene. Polypropylene spunbonded fabrics are used in a variety of end uses, which include absorbent product coverstock markets, home furnishing and automotive markets because of lowest cost, and in low polypropylene non‐ woven fabric applications [29].

Polypropylene is also used extensively in sheath-core configuration to take advantage of the lower melting point of the former in thermally bonded spunbonds; the polypropylene core fiber retains its fibrous character and excellent physical properties. Even though there is only a very small window of temperature at which polypropylene will melt for bonding purposes, the fabrics made in this manner do not suffer any appreciable loss of fiber properties [29].
