Textile fabrics

931,374. Agglutinated fibrous fabrics. IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES Ltd. Feb. 16, 1962 [March 6, 1961], No. 8051/61. Class 42 (2). A fibrous non-woven fabric is produced by impregnating a carded web of fibres or a web in which the fibres are randomly disposed with a solution of an acrylonitrile polymer or a copolymer containing a major amount of acrylonitrile, gelling the polymer or copolymer solution in the impregnated web by immersion in a liquid which is a non-solvent for the polymer or copolymer and is miscible or partly miscible with the solvent employed for the acrylonitrile polymer or copolymer, and thereafter heating to dry the fabric. The web may be impregnated either by spraying the solution thereon or by total immersion of the web in the solution followed by squeezing between rollers to express the excess solution. Suitable solvents for the acrylonitrile polymer or copolymer are dimethyl formamide, dimethyl acetamide, ethylene carbonate, dimethyl sulphoxide, butyrolactone and concentrated solutions of thiocyanates, e.g. sodium thiocyanate. The gelation of the impregnated web is preferably effected by water. If the solvent for the acrylonitrile polymer or copolymer is ethylene carbonate, then the liquid used to effect gelation may be methanol, ethanol, ethyl acetate, methylene chloride, ethylene dichloride, chloroform, benzene, toluene or dichloroethyl ether, all of which are miscible in all proportions with ethylene carbonate, or diethyl ether, nbutanol, carbon tetrachloride or trichloroethylene which are partially miscible with ethylene carbonate. If the solvent is dimethyl sulphoxide then the gelation liquid is methanol. The gelation liquid may contain a proportion of the solvent for the polymer or copolymer. The acrylonitrile may be copolymerized with a minor amount of ethyl acrylate or butyl acrylate, optionally in the presence of polyacrylic acid. The fibres of the web may be viscose rayon, acetate rayon, nylon or polyester or a mixture thereof. The fibrous web may contain a small amount of cellulose acetate or polyacrylonitrile fibres which may be softened or dissolved by the impregnation treatment. Examples are given stating the weight of the fibrous web, amounts of the acrylonitrile polymer or copolymer and the solvent, the length of time of immersion in and the temperature of the gelation liquid, and the amount of binder in the finished fabric.