Spin Finish – Nmr

DESCRIPTION

Liquid Coatings in the Textile Industry
One aspect of the technology routinely utilised is the use of liquid coatings to control and modify the behaviour of fibres. These liquid coatings are applied at a variety of stages in the manufacturing process, sometimes as early as fibre extrusion in synthetic fibre manufacture, but sometimes as late as application to woven or non-woven fabrics.

The coatings are covered by many different terms, including spin finish, finish on fibre, oil pick-up, staple fibre finish & finish on yarn.

The measurement of liquid on fibre, yarn or fabric is a critical technique throughout the textile industry.

Why choose NMR?
The traditional method of solvent extraction has a number of features that make it unattractive in an industrial environment – such as being slow, using potentially harmful chemicals and requiring highly trained personnel to carry out the process. By contrast, the use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) for the measurement of liquid coatings (including spin finish) addresses all of these issues:

– No solvent extraction is required
– Measurement can be carried out by process operators with minimal training
– Results are consistent and operator-independent
– The instrument needs only a benchtop in a reasonably clean & stable-temperature environment; no fume cupboard is required
– Measurement is fast, allowing hundreds of samples to be measured each day In addition, NMR has other advantages:
– NMR is a bulk measurement technique; it measures the whole sample equally and is not affected by air voids
– NMR is generally insensitive to colour
– NMR measurement is non-destructive, so measurements can be easily repeated
– NMR is stable over long periods, and has minimal recalibration requirements

NMR is an attractive, accurate, fast, reliable and easy-to-use technique for the measurement of liquid coating levels, such as spin finish, in the textile industry.