GB522220A - Improvements in artificial leather-like products and their production - Google Patents

Abstract

522,220. Agglutinated fibrous materials. FREUDENBERG, W., FREUDENBERG, H., FREUDENBERG, O., and FREUDENBERG, R. Dec. 8, 1938, Nos. 35876 and 35877. Convention dates, Dec. 23, 1937 and.July 30, 1938. [Class 140] Artificial leather-like sheets made by impregnating fibre fleeces with solid rubber or rubberlike polymers of unsaturated organic compounds or aqueous dispersions or emulsions thereof are improved by treating them with bases, e.g., solutions of caustic soda or caustic potash, ammonia or sodium carbonate, without tension, until the fibres are swollen and thereafter removing the bases, e.g., by washing with water or by neutralizing and washing out the salts formed. The fleeces may comprise cotton, bast fibres, wood fibres, hair, skin or leather fibres, ramie, wool, silk, artificial silk or staple fibres. They may be disintegrated by boiling, treated with oxidizing or reducing agents, or impregnated with wetting agents before carding. Rubber-like polymers include polyvinyl and polyacrylic compounds, polystyrene, mixed polymers of vinyl chloride with vinyl esters, butadiene and isoprene polymers. The impregnated fleeces may be dried and pressed before treatment with the bases. The final product may be vulcanized. Before treatment with the swelling agent, the fleece may be partly coated, e.g., as a pattern, with a resist which may comprise synthetic resins, proteins or aluminium salts. A further 'treatment with the binding agent may be given after the swelling treatment. Specifications 488,394, 505,794, and 505,801 are referred to. The Specification as open to inspection under Sect. 91 comprises the use of organic bases such as amines or heterocyclic bases. This subjectmatter does not appear in the Specification as accepted. Reference has been directed by the Comptroller to Specification 15253/07, [Class 140].