Figure 1.--
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Figure 1.-- |
Polyester is a polymer in which the monomer units are liked by the group COO. Polyesters are used in the manufacture of resins, plastics, and textile fabrics. Polyester fabrics appeared before World War II (1939-45), but were not produced in large quanities for civilian clothing until after the War. The first polyester was nylon which the American Dupont Corporation created in 1938. Many different fabrics appeared, including, Rayon, Terrelyn, and others. Each has its own characteristics, one of
the most important being ease of care. Initially many garments were made in pure polyester fabrics. The garment industry has since developed polyester blends including cotton or wool to obtain the advantages of both natural fabrics and the new synthetic polyester fabrics. British boys are especially familiar with Terreyln worsted which largely replaced flannel
short pants in the 1960s. The Terylene mix in the material used in the make-up in British made shorts pants is about 65 percent polyester/35 percent viscose mix, with only a very small variation on this. The heavier, warmer more expensive shorts are normally 55% polyester and /45 percet wool. The typical differing in trade and manufacturing names means that clothing produced in South Africa for retail in that country are labelled as Trevira and Viscose (in a 65/35 percent mix).
Since the creation of nylon in 1938, many other polyester fibers have been introduced to produce clothing.
Shortages of wool during World War II gave impetus to research into regenerated protein fibers. One result was the milk protein fiber Aralac. Aralac was produced by the National Dairy Products Corp in the early 1940s and was used for a wide variety of garments as well as hats and blankets. It made the advertising pages of Vogue, but consumers complained that when it got wet it smelled like sour milk!
Kevlar was invented by Stephanie Louise Kwolek. It is a material five times stronger than steel.
The first hint of a new generation of textile fibers occurred in 1938 when DuPont announced the invention of nylon. The
following year the company introduced nylon at the New York World's Fair. Initial production was limited, but stockings and underwear made of nylon sold well until the entry of the United States into World War II during 1941 when the new fiber was diverted to military use. Much of the world's silk production was centered in China and Japan as thus not available to the Allied war effort. Most of the still limited production of nylon was used to produce parachute chutes for the American and British paratroop units that played such an important role in the war. Only after the War in the late 1940s did nylon become available for clothing production. It was first used primarily to produce women's stockings (which to this day are still referred to as nylons) and underwear. A reader writes, "We are trying to research if there are any modern uses of weaving nylon or kevlar into denim for jeans?
Would you happen to know of any, or know how we could find out? Has the technology changed from the uncomfortable Sears ToughSkins brand jeans?" HBC has no information on this, but would be interested in any information our readers may have.
Rayon was a very early development. It was not a synthetic, but it was the first manufactured fiber ever created. It was produced from wood or cotton pulp. Manufacturers first called it "artificial silk". Swiss chemist, Georges Audemars was the first to create artifical silk. He produced his fabric about 1855. As silk worms consumed mulberry leaves, Audemars worked with mulberry. Audemars dipped a needle into liquified mulberry bark pulp and gummy rubber making threads. This demonstrated the feasibility of the process, but was not a viable commercial process. French chemist Hilaire de Charbonnet, Comte de Chardonnay, in 1884 patented a process for producing artificial silk. His product was a cellulose-based fabric that he called Chardonnay silk. It was an attractive fabric, but very flammable and thus taken off the market. British researchers Charles Cross, Edward Bevan, and Clayton Beadle in 1894 finally patented a process for manufacturing a safe product which the British called viscose rayon. Avtex Fibersbegan the initial American commercial production of artificial silk in 1910. The term "rayon" began to be used in 1924.
This is a British trade name. Whinfield and Dickson with the research work of W.K. Birtwhistle and C.G. Ritchiethey created the first polyester fiber in 1941. They named it Terylene.
Zellglass" was a synthetic fiber used in World War II Germany and afterwards for the manufacture of long stockings when cotton was impossible to get. The major sources of cotton were America, Egypt, and India. The Royal Navy blockade tus made cotton impossible to obtain in Germany in large quanities. The material was apparently a type of "celanese". An example is Netko long stockings.
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