Studies on Antistatic Property of Surface Active Agents

Abstract

The behavior of antistatic agents applied to textile fibers was studied. Surface active agents (SAA) used in this work were purified highly. Surface electric resistivity of fibers treated with SAA solutions and specific conductivity of the solutions were measured. Besides, the effect of added electrolyte and the orientation of SAA to the fibers were also studied.Surface electric resistivity decreased as the concentration of SAA solutions increased and in the vicinity of the critical micelle concentration of SAA it once increased and again decreased in the higher concentration. It may be concluded that antistatic effect is greatly affected by the micelle state of used solutions.Inorganic salts added to SAA solutions did not afford electric conductivity to the fibers but contributed to the change of the micelle state of SAA solutions. The addition of NaCl to the solutions of cationic surfactants (CSA) resulted in an increase in the sorption of CSA by fibers and was effective in antistatic effect, but NaOH was not. It is suitable for antistatic treatment to use CSA together with electrolyte having the tendency to salt out CSA and to make micelle molecular weight larger. Antistatic effect of fibers treated in organic solvent was less than that treated in water, because of low micelle molecular weight.Piles of Nylon, Dacron, cotton and glass fiber treated with SAA were dispersed in benzol-water and the orientation to fibers of SAA was studied by observing in which of the two layers they dispersed. Following result was obtained; CSA in benzol, anionic surfactants in water. But piles treated with Na dioctyl phosphate which is the only antistatic agent of anionic surfactants dispersed in benzol or interface. It may be due to the orientation of SAA to fibers that CSA and Na dioctyl phosphate exhibit good antistatic properties.