913545

research-article2020
JEF0010.1177/1558925020913545Journal of Engineered Fibers and FabricsGou et al.

Original Article

Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics

Study on composite spinning oil for Volume 15: 1­–5

© The Author(s) 2020
https://doi.org/10.1177/1558925020913545
DOI: 10.1177/1558925020913545
polyester bulked continuous filament journals.sagepub.com/home/jef

with high efficiency

Ming-xia Gou1,2 , Ge-xin Chen1,2, Xu Meng1,

Jin-mei Wang1,2 and Pei-qing Zhao1

Abstract
The special spinning oil for modified polyester bulked continuous filament was prepared using compound technology.
The mixture of smoothing agent, emulsifier, collecting agent, and antistatic agent at certain proportions shows synergistic
effect, which improves the usability of spinning oil on the whole. According to the use of different components,
polyoxyethylene ether, polyether, and white oil spinning oil are synthesized, respectively. The basic performances of self-
made spinning oil are better than those of a commercially available spinning oil, and its production rate can reach 93%.

Keywords
Spinning oil, polyoxyethylene ether, polyether, white oil, basic performance, production rate

Date received: 22 July 2019; accepted: 9 February 2020

Introduction temperature, special spinning oil should be adopted to meet

production demand. Previously, the spinning oil for poly-
Chemical fibre is widely used in carpet, although it has propylene (PP) BCF2–4 and polyamide (PA) BCF5 has been
some disadvantages of poor hygroscopicity and serious reported. The spinning oil for ordinary PET BCF relies on
static electrical phenomenon due to the lack of natural oil imports or is provided by the Sino-foreign joint venture in
slick and wax. Spinning oil is the key assistant in process- China. However, the special spinning oil for modified PET
ing of chemical fiber and its performance has a significant BCF has not been reported yet. At present, the most pro-
impact on the fiber quality and post-processing. Specifically, duction enterprises of modified PET BCF use imported PP
spinning oil can efficiently improve the pliability of fiber.
In addition, a layer of oil film on the surface of the fiber can
1
be formed, which can decrease fibers’ friction coefficient L anzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Lanzhou, China
and increase fiber cohesion, uniformly draft, reduce the rate 2
Yiwu R&D Center for Functional Materials, Lanzhou Institute of
of broken filaments, and improve its spinnability.1 Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yiwu, China
Compared with ordinary air-texturing, the production
Corresponding authors:
process of bulked continuous filament (BCF) has a higher Ming-xia Gou, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy
melting extruder temperature and a higher spinning speed. of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
The drafting, texturing, and interlace processing are com- Email: [email protected]
pleted via a one-step process, which requires spinning oil Ge-xin Chen, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy
with a high quality. For the modified polyester (PET) BCF, of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
due to the complex structure and high tensile deformation Email: [email protected]

Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the
work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://
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2 Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics 

or PA BCF spinning oil that is of high cost. In order to save temperature, and oil film strength. The appearance was
cost, ordinary PET spinning oil is used by most production judged by its color, transparency, sediment, suspended mat-
enterprises of modified PET BCF. No matter what kind of ter, and impurities. The stability was analyzed by observing
spinning oil is used, issues, such as poor heat resistance, changes of spinning oil emulsion with a concentration of
more BCF broken filaments, and end breakage, still exist. 2% in water for 72 h. The viscosity was tested according to
Therefore, it is urgent to develop improved spinning oil in GB/T 10247-2008, and it was detected by the SNB-1-type
order to meet the requirements of production. rotating viscometer. The volatility was tested by calculating
In this work, smoothing agent, emulsifier, collecting the weight loss of 5 g spinning oil sample that was dried at
agent, and antistatic agent at a certain proportion were 200°C for 5 h. The coke residue was tested by calculating
mixed via compound technology, which shows synergistic the residual solvents of 1 g spinning oil sample that was
effect for the development of special spinning oil with dried at 220°C for 8 h. Smoking temperature was tested
improved usability for modified PET BCF. Specifically, using HLY-III-type automatic Oil Smoke Point according
polyethers, white oil, and polyoxyethylene ethers were to GB/T 20795-2006. The oil film strength of spinning oil
used as the main raw materials to synthesize three kinds of was tested by the MRS-10(A) four-ball frication test
spinning oil, respectively. When comparing their basic machine according to the GB/T 12583-98 standard test
performance with 3# spinning oil that most production method for measurement of extreme-pressure properties of
enterprises had been using, one kind of spinning oil has the lubricating fluids (four-ball method) and it was expressed
similar or better performance. The best spinning oil we with the pressure value when the oil film just rupture.
synthesized was produced in large scale and compared
with 3# spinning oil that most enterprises had been using
Application performance tests
on application performance. These results provided a theo-
retical reference for further research on spinning oil. PET BCF has high tensile strength, bulkiness, low boiling
water shrinkage, and high heat-crimp elongation. The
application performance of spinning oil includes fineness,
Materials and methods breaking strength, elongation at break, heat-crimp elonga-
Materials tion, boiling water shrinkage, spinning oil content, and
production rate. Fineness was tested according to GB/T
The smoothing agent is isomeric alcohol ethoxylates, poly- 14343, whereas breaking strength and elongation at break
oxyethylene–polyoxypropylene block copolymer, the addi- were tested according to GB/T 14344. The heat-crimp
tion polymers formed from epoxide, and a unique initiator, elongation was tested according to FZ/T 50030, boiling
polyoxyethylene (40) castor oil ether. The emulsifying agent water shrinkage was tested according to GB/T 6505, and
is alcohol ethoxylate. The collecting agent is polyethylene finishing oil content was tested according to GB/T 6504.
glycol monooleate 264 or polyethylene glycol 400 The production rate of PET BCF was calculated by the fol-
monooleate. The antistatic agent is alkyl phosphate ester lowing formula
ammonium or octadecyl dimethyl hydroxyethyl quaternary
ammonium nitrate. The aforementioned materials were pur-
chased from Jiangsu Haian Petroleum Chemical Factory, Wf
Production rate = × 100%
China. Most production enterprises had been using 3# spin- W f + Ww + Wd + Wt
ning oil which is a commercially available spinning oil.
where Wf is the total weight of finished BCF yarn, Ww is
Synthesis method of spinning oil the weight of waste BCF yarn, Wd is the weight of defec-
tive BCF yarn, and Wt is the weight of waste BCF yarn
Certain amounts of emulsifying agents, collecting agent, transitional yarn.
and antistatic agents were mixed in a reactor. When the The main production equipment is S3 BCF spinning
temperature was raised to 80°C, a mixture of various machine (Neumag, Germany). The working condition is a
emulsifying agents was added and then stirred at a low spinning speed of 2500 m/min and BCF carpet yarn speci-
speed until they were well combined. These reactants were fications of 1250 dtex/90F.
kept stirring at a constant temperature of 80°C for 2 h, fol-
lowed by cooling to room temperature. Then, the modified
PET BCF spinning oil was obtained. Results and discussion
Results and discussion at the experiment
Basic performance tests exploration stage
The basic performance tests of spinning oil include appear- Appearance. The appearance of self-made spinning oil at
ance, stability, viscosity, volatility, coke residue, smoking the experimental stage is shown in Figure 1.
Gou et al. 3

It can be seen from Figure 1 that the polyether spinning liquid, the emulsion of 3# spinning oil is oyster white, and
oil is a colorless transparent liquid, and the polyoxyethyl- the emulsion of white oil is in grey translucent color.
ene ether and 3# spinning oil are yellow transparent liq- After keeping the four kinds of spinning oil at room
uids, the white oil is obviously lamination, and the upper temperature for 12, 24, 48, and 72 h, no difference was
layer of spinning oil is mild yellow and the lower layer is found for the emulsion of 3#, polyether, and polyoxyethyl-
yellow. ene ether spinning oils, but the emulsion of white oil was
changed, as shown in Figure 3.
Stability tests. Stability is an important performance indi- It can be seen from Figure 3 that the emulsion of white
cator to measure spinning oil, and it mainly refers to oil is a transparent liquid after 24 h, but there is a thin layer
whether the spinning oil emulsion is layered at a certain of oil on the top of the emulsion, and an obvious stratifica-
temperature. Unstable emulsion mainly exits in the follow- tion between oil and water occurred. Results indicate that
ing three conditions:6 layering, variant, and breaking emul- the compatibility and emulsification influence the stability
sion. Layering means that emulsion is not really broken, of the emulsion a lot.
but it is divided into two types of emulsion. Variant is that
emulsion is transformed from oil-in-water (or water-in-oil) Viscosity testing. Temperatures and pressures were greatly
into water-in-oil (or oil-in-water) emulsion; when the changed during the course of high-speed friction on fiber.
internal phase volume of emulsion is greater than 74%, The spinning oil concentration on the fiber was increased
variant occurs. Breaking emulsion means that emulsion is owing to water evaporation under high temperature of the
completely destroyed, and the reasons are as follows: heater. If the viscosity changes greatly with the spinning oil
unreasonable formula, the quality of one-component spin- concentration, it will cause the change in friction forms and
ning oil has changed, and the emulsion compounding is variation of tension. In order to maintain spinning smoothly,
incorrect. it is necessary to maintain the viscosity unchangeable with
According to the reference, there are no universal the variation of concentration. The viscosity of four kinds
standards for the stability testing time. During this experi- of spinning oil is shown in Figure 4.
ment, 72 h was chosen for stability testing. The test results It can be seen from Figure 4 that the viscosity of poly-
of different kinds of spinning oil emulsion with a concen- ether spinning oil changes gradually when the concentra-
tration of 2% in water are shown in Figure 2. tion is changed and the viscosity of other samples
It can be seen from Figure 2 that the emulsions of poly- fluctuated obviously. The viscosity has obvious fluctua-
ether and polyoxyethylene ether are colorless transparent tions when the concentration is in the range of 60%–90%.
During the spinning process, if the air humidity and tem-
perature are high in the workshop, it will cause the viscos-
ity change of 3# spinning oil, white oil, and polyoxyethylene
ether, thus causing tension fluctuation and impacting the
quality of fiber.

Heat resistance testing. Heat resistance of spinning oil has

two meanings: one is that the spinning oil on the fiber has
Figure 1. The appearance of polyoxyethylene ether spinning little volatility, good formability, and no split filament after
oil (a), polyether spinning oil (b), 3# spinning oil (c), and white hot roller stretching, and the other is that contact heating is
oil spinning oil (d). used during the stretching process and the spinning oil

Figure 2. The stability of polyoxyethylene ether spinning oil emulsion (a), polyether spinning oil (b), 3# spinning oil (c), and white
oil spinning oil (d).
4 Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics 

Figure 3. The stability of white oil emulsions at 12, 24, 48, and 72 h.

Figure 4. The viscosity curves of different kinds of spinning oil.

Figure 5. Test results of oil film strength.

Table 1. Test results of heat resistance.

Spinning oil Polyether White Polyoxyethylene 3# (Figure 5). The abrasion resistance can reflect frictional
oil ether
characteristics of spinning finish. The oil film attached on
Smoking 220 180 204 167 the surface of the fiber does not break under high tempera-
temperature (°C) ture, high shear rate, and constant pressure; otherwise, the
Volatility (%) 20.41 15.26 13.96 23.99 frictional behaviors of the fiber will be changed and can
(200°C, 5 h) influence the spinnability of the fiber. It can be seen from
Coke residue (%) 17.34 9.27 48.04 68.23 Figure 5 that the PB values of polyoxyethylene ether and
(224°C, 8 h)
polyether spinning oil are higher than that of 3# spinning oil.

residues on the hot roller can easily be resolved, cannot Results and discussion at the intermediate trial
undergo crosslinking easily, and have little coking residue; stage
otherwise, it will cause split and breakage of the filament.7
Test results of heat resistance are shown in Table 1. Based on the experimental results, the polyoxyethylene
The high-speed spinning oil is required to undergo little ether and polyether spinning oil are selected for pilot pro-
volatilization in a short time and high volatilization in a duction, the BCF x-01 is denoted as polyoxyethylene ether
long time. Therefore, the smoking temperature is above spinning oil, and the BCF x-02 is denoted as polyether
165°C and the decomposition temperature is below spinning oil. The application performance for different
220°C.8 The results in Table 1 demonstrate that the smok- types of spinning oil is analyzed. Self-made spinning oil
ing temperature of all samples is above 165°C, the smok- (BCF x-01 or BCF x-02) was used for two shifts and 3#
ing temperature of self-made spinning oil is higher than spinning oil was used for two shifts. Test results of the
that of 3# spinning oil, and its volatility and coke residue application performance of different spinning oils are
are less than those of 3# spinning oil. The polyether spin- shown in Table 2.
ning oil has high heat resistance. The experimental results show that, under the same
facilities and technical process, the spinning oil contents of
Oil film strength testing. In this experiment, three kinds of BCF x-01 and BCF x-02 are higher than that of 3# spin-
spinning oils were selected to test their oil film strength ning oil, and their other application performances are
Gou et al. 5

Table 2. Test results of application performance.

Spinning Fineness Heat-crimp Boiling water Breaking strength Elongation Spinning oil Production
oil (dtex) elongation (%) shrinkage (%) (cN/dtex) at break (%) content (%) rate (%)
BCF x-01 1304 46.62 1.23 1.98 34.02 1.13 93.4
3# 1304 45.72 1.18 1.99 34.16 0.84 95.8
BCF x-02 1283 44.68 1.28 2.03 32.35 1.04 96.0
3# 1300 49.00 1.29 2.04 33.22 0.90 94.7

BCF: bulked continuous filament.

similar to 3# spinning oil. The self-made spinning oil Funding

showed performance equal to 3# spinning oil, its produc- The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
tion rate could reach 93%, and it could completely satisfy authorship, and/or publication of this article.
the practical requirement of fiber production.
ORCID iD
Ming-xia Gou https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8700-835X
Conclusion
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