Effects of melt-blowing process conditions on morphological and mechanical properties of polypropylene webs

Abstract

Isotactic polypropylene (iPP) melt-blown webs have been studied in terms of the relationships among the processing conditions, structure and mechanical properties. The melt-blowing process conditions investigated in this study were die and air temperatures, die-to-collector distance ( DCD) and attenuation air flow rate at the die. The macroscopic web structure was characterized in terms of interfibrous bonding and fibre diameter using scanning electron microscopy. The degree of fibre entanglements was found to increase with decreasing DCD, with increasing die temperature, or with increasing air flow rate. Using wide-angle X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry (d.s.c.), the microscopic molecular structure of iPP has been investigated. The fibres in a web consist of the α-form crystal, smectic phase and amorphous regions. The crystallinity of the iPP webs obtained from d.s.c. was found to be similar (39–44%) since the smectic phase transforms to crystals on heating in a d.s.c. A wide range of tensile properties and flexural rigidity values in the machine direction and cross direction were obtained at various processing conditions. The results have been analysed in terms of the degree of fibre entanglements, fibre orientation in the machine direction and the fraction of smectic phase.