Polyesters, e.g., Dacron, produced by the polymerization of the product of an alcohol and organic-acid reaction, are strong and wrinkle-resistant. Microfiber , which was introduced in 1986, is a variety of polyester that has extremely thin filaments. One cannot overstate the importance of Microfiber to our civilization. As a synthetic it provides humans with control over its supply. It is tough, resilient, and can be manufactured to extremely fine tolerances, many times thinner than other synthetics. It is this strength, precision and absolute sheerness as well as its phenomenal absorbency that give rise to so many applications, including an amazing ability to clean and dry surfaces. Now microfiber (specifically polyester) as the sole constituent of a cloth will wear and shed fiber with use, so it is best utilized (as it is in Googalies) in combination with Nylon. Nylon, a synthetic thermoplastic material introduced in 1938, is strong, elastic, resistant to abrasion and chemicals, and low in moisture absorbency.
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When combined with the polyester microfiber in just the right combination, a cloth results with the advantages of both synthetics. Too much nylon will result in a cloth that will scratch fine or delicate surfaces like coated optics or fine wood or paint finishes. Too little nylon and the cloth will not last or clean rough surfaces like guitar strings without rapid deterioration. It is this perfect combination of microfiber and nylon that make Googalies the wonder it is. Many of you may find it interesting to more completely explore the evolution of man-made or synthetic fibers so we have provided below and brief yet comprehensive history of these wonderful inventions below.
Natural Fibers
Historically, the use of fiber was limited to those fibers available in the natural world. However, cotton and linen wrinkled from wear and washings; Silk required delicate handling; Wool shrank, and was irritating to the touch. Only a century ago, rayon - the first manufactured fiber - was developed. Fiber chemistry for endless application began.
Manufactured (man-made) fibers are now found in modern apparel, home furnishings, medicine, aeronautics, energy, industry, and more. Fiber engineers can combine, modify and tailor fibers in ways far beyond the performance limits of fiber drawn from natural sources such as the silkworm cocoon that is grown in the fields, or spun from the fleece of animals. The table below illustrates the evolution of man-made fibers.
First Commercial U.S. Fiber Production
1910 — Rayon 1924 — Acetate 1930 — Rubber 1936 — Glass 1939 — Nylon 1939 — Vinyon 1941 — Saran 1946 — Metallic 1949 — Modacrylic 1949 — Olefin 1950 — Acrylic 1953 — Polyester 1959 — Spandex 1961 — Aramid 1983 — PBI 1983 — Sulfar 1986 — Microfiber 1992 — LyocellThe Early Attempts
The first patent for "artificial silk" was granted in England in 1855 to a Swiss chemist named Audemars. He dissolved the fibrous inner bark of a mulberry tree, chemically modifying it to produce cellulose. He formed threads by dipping needles into this solution and drawing them out - but it never occurred to him to emulate the silkworm by extruding the cellulosic liquid through a small hole.
In the early 1880's, Sir Joseph W. Swan, an English chemist and electrician, was spurred to action by Thomas Edison's new incandescent electric lamp. He experimented with forcing a liquid similar to Audemars solution through fine holes into a coagulating bath. His fibers worked like carbon filament, and they found early use in Edison's invention. It also occurred to Swan that his filament could be used to make textiles. In 1885, he exhibited in London some fabrics crocheted by his wife from his new fiber.
First Commercial Production
The first commercial scale production of a manufactured fiber was achieved by French chemist Count Hilaire de Chardonnet. In 1889, his fabrics of "artificial silk" caused a sensation at the Paris Exhibition. Two years later, he built the first commercial rayon plant at Besancon, France, and secured his fame as the "father of the rayon industry."
Several attempts to produce "artificial silk" in the United States were made during the early 1900's, but none were commercially successful until the American Viscose Company, formed by Samuel Courtaulds and Co., Ltd., began its production of rayon in 1910.
In 1893, Arthur D. Little of Boston, invented yet another cellulosic product - acetate - and developed it as a film. By 1910, Camille and Henry Dreyfus were making acetate motion picture film and toilet articles in Basel, Switzerland. During World War I, they built a plant in England to produce cellulose acetate dope for airplane wings and other commercial products. Upon entering the War, the United States government invited the Dreyfus brothers to build a plant in Maryland to make the product for American warplanes. The first commercial textile uses for acetate in fiber form were developed by the Celanese Company in 1924.
In the meantime, U.S. rayon production was growing to meet increasing demand. By the mid-1920's, textile manufacturers could purchase the fiber for half the price of raw silk.
So began manufactured fibers' gradual conquest of the American fiber market. This modest start in the 1920's grew to nearly 70% of the national market for fiber by the last decade of the century.
Nylon - The "Miracle" Fiber
In September 1931, American chemist Wallace Carothers reported on research carried out in the laboratories of the DuPont Company on "giant" molecules called polymers. He focused his work on a fiber referred to simply as "66", a number derived from its molecular structure. Nylon, the "miracle fiber," was born. The Chemical Heritage Foundation is currently featuring an exhibit on the history of nylon.
By 1938, Paul Schlack of the I.G. Farben Company in Germany, polymerized caprolactam and created a different form of the polymer, identified simply as nylon "6."
Nylon's advent created a revolution in the fiber industry. Rayon and acetate had been derived from plant cellulose, but nylon was synthesized completely from petrochemicals. It established the basis for the ensuing discovery of an entire new world of manufactured fibers.
An American Romance
DuPont began commercial production of nylon in 1939. The first experimental testing used nylon as sewing thread in parachute fabric, and in women's hosiery. Nylon stockings were shown in February 1939 at the San Francisco Exposition - and the most exciting fashion innovation of the age was underway.
American women had only a sampling of the beauty and durability of their first pairs of nylon hose when their romance with the new fabric was cut short. The United States entered World War II in December 1941 and the War Production Board allocated all production of nylon for military use. Nylon hose, which sold for $1.25 a pair before the War, moved in the black market at $10. Wartime pin-ups and movie stars, like Betty Grable, auctioned nylon hose for as much as $40,000 a pair in war-effort drives.
During the War, nylon replaced Asian silk in parachutes. It also found use in tires, tents, ropes, ponchos, and other military supplies, and even was used in the production of a high-grade paper for U.S. currency. At the outset of the War, cotton was king of fibers, accounting for more than 80% of all fibers used. Manufactured and wool fibers shared the remaining 20%. By the end of the War in August 1945, cotton stood at 75% of the fiber market. Manufactured fibers had risen to 15%.
The Post-War Industry
After the war, GI's came home, families were reunited, industrial America gathered its peacetime forces, and economic growth surged. The conversion of nylon production to civilian uses started and when the first small quantities of postwar nylon stockings were advertised, thousands of frenzied women lined up at New York department stores to buy.
In the immediate post-war period, most nylon production was used to satisfy this enormous pent up demand for hosiery. But by the end of the 1940's, it was also being used in carpeting and automobile upholstery. At the same time, three new generic manufactured fibers started production. Dow Badische Company (today, BASF Corporation) introduced metalized fibers; Union Carbide Corporation developed modacrylic fiber; and Hercules, Inc. added olefin fiber. Manufactured fibers continued their steady march.
By the 1950's, the industry was supplying more than 20% of the fiber needs of textile mills. A new fiber, ""acrylic,"" was added to the list of generic names, as DuPont began production of this wool-like product.
Meanwhile, polyester, first examined as part of the Wallace Carothers early research, was attracting new interest at the Calico Printers Association in Great Britain. There, J. T. Dickson and J. R. Whinfield produced a polyester fiber by condensation polymerization of ethylene glycol with terephthalic acid. DuPont subsequently acquired the patent rights for the United States and Imperial Chemical Industries for the rest of the world. A host of other producers soon joined in.
A Wash and Wear Revolution
In the summer of 1952, "wash and wear" was coined to describe a new blend of cotton and acrylic. The term eventually was applied to a wide variety of manufactured fiber blends. Commercial production of polyester fiber transformed the "wash and wear" novelty into a revolution in textile product performance.
Polyester's commercialization in 1953 was accompanied by the introduction of triacetate. The majority of the 20th century's basic manufactured fibers now had been discovered, and the industry's engineers turned to refining their chemical and physical properties to extend their use across the American economy.
In the 1960's and 1970's consumers bought more and more clothing made with polyester. Clotheslines were replaced by electric dryers, and the "wash and wear" garments they dried emerged wrinkle free. Ironing began to shrink away on the daily list of household chores. Fabrics became more durable and color more permanent. New dyeing effects were being achieved and shape-retaining knits offered new comfort and style.
Endless Possibilities
In the 1960's, manufactured fiber production accelerated as it was spurred on by continuous fiber innovation. The revolutionary new fibers were modified to offer greater comfort, provide flame resistance, reduce clinging, release soil, achieve greater whiteness, special dullness or luster, easier dyeability, and better blending qualities. New fiber shapes and thicknesses were introduced to meet special needs. Spandex, a stretchable fiber; aramid, a high-temperature-resistant polyamide; and para-aramid, with outstanding strength-to-weight properties, were introduced into the marketplace.
In the early 1960's, manufactured fiber accounted for nearly 30% of American textile mill consumption. By 1965, the manufactured fiber industry was providing over 40% of the nation's fiber needs.
One dramatic new set of uses for manufactured fibers came with the establishment of the U.S. space program. The industry provided special fiber for uses ranging from clothing for the astronauts to spaceship nose cones. When Neil Armstrong took "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," on the moon on July 20, 1969, his lunar space suit included multi-layers of nylon and aramid fabrics. The flag he planted was made of nylon.
Today, the exhaust nozzles of the two large booster rockets that lift the space shuttle into orbit contain 30,000 pounds of carbonized rayon. Carbon fiber composites are used in as structural components in the latest commercial aircraft, adding strength and lowering weight and fuel costs.
Safety and Energy Challenges
The early 1970's saw a wave of consumer protection demands, most notably one for a mandated Federal flammability standard for children's sleepwear. The manufactured fiber industry spent $20 million on flammability research and development in 1972 and 1973, and manufactured fiber fabrics became predominant in this market. Flammability standards were also issued for carpet and other products. In the U.S. carpet market, 99% of all surface fibers are now manufactured fibers.
In late 1973, when the Nation was struck by a severe energy crisis, the manufactured fiber industry reduced the energy required to produce a pound of fiber by 26%. By then, the industry was using but 1% of the Nation's petroleum supply to provide two-thirds of all fibers used by American textile mills.
Today
Innovation is the hallmark of the manufactured fiber industry. Fibers more numerous and diverse than any found in nature are now routinely created in the industry's laboratories.
Nylon variants, polyester, and olefin are used to produce carpets that easily can be rinsed clean — even 24 hours after they've been stained. Stretchable spandex and machine-washable, silk-like polyesters occupy solid places in the U.S. apparel market. The finest microfiber is remaking the world of fashion.
For industrial uses, manufactured fibers relentlessly replace traditional materials in applications from super-absorbent diapers, to artificial organs, to construction materials for moon-based space stations. Engineered non-woven products of manufactured fibers are found in applications from surgical gowns and apparel interfacing to roofing materials, road bed stabilizers, and floppy disk envelopes and liners. Non-woven fabrics, stiff as paper or as soft and comfortable as limp cloth, are made without knitting or weaving.
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Microfibre is a synthetic fabric consisting of ultra-fine fibres. These fibres generally have diameters measuring less than 10 micrometers and have denier weights under 0.7 D. Comparatively, a single strand of silk is around 1 D, making microfibre one of the world’s finest forms of textile fibre.
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Popularized by its use in cleaning products, microfibre has unparalleled softness, which has led to the rise of microfibre apparel and accessories. Microfibre is also highly durable, and it is both reasonably absorbent and water-repellant. Due to its impressive electrostatic qualities, microfibre also excels as a filtration mechanism, leading to a recent surge of interest in using this fabric as a protective face mask material.
Over the years, textile manufacturers have developed quite a few different types of microfibre fabrics, and new applications for this fabric within various industries continue to emerge. Despite its impressive beneficial properties, microfibre has a distinctly negative impact on the environment.
Textile manufacturers have experimented with extremely low-denier fabric fibres since the early 1950s. While early attempts to produce ultra-thin fibres were largely successful, it was difficult to control the length of the fibres produced, significantly limiting the potential applications of this new textile technology.
The first major breakthrough in mass-scale microfibre production occurred when textile manufacturers moved away from the melt-spinning process, which remains one of the primary production methods for other synthetic textiles, and began using bicomponent polymers that featured multiple types of textile plastics. These polymers proved to be much stronger than plastics consisting of single components, reducing the breakage that had previously occurred when extruding extremely thin textile fibres.
In the 1960s, the famed Japanese textile company Toray started mass-producing microfibre fabric for the first time. Dr. Miyoshi Okamoto proved to be the primary architect of the microfibre revolution, and with the assistance of Dr. Toyohiko Hikota, Toray produced a variety of microfibre fabrics including ultrasuede, which was one of the first microfibres to attain widespread popularity.
Aside from the notable exception of ultrasuede, however, use of microfibre fabrics remained highly limited in scope until the 1990s when Swedish textile manufacturers began producing a wide variety of other microfibre materials. Practically overnight, microfibre became a popular apparel material throughout Europe, and additional applications of microfibre in the arenas of cleaning and industry were also established. Therefore, while Toray is credited with the development of the first commercially successful microfibre fabrics, it’s likely that this material would not have become popular without the subsequent European microfibre revolution.
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Microfibre continued to gain popularity in Asia and Europe throughout the 1990s, and by the early 2000s, this fabric had also become popular in North America and throughout the rest of the world. Due to the unique cleaning properties of microfibre, this fabric became a staple textile for washcloths, kitchen towels, mopheads, and a variety of other cleaning materials. While microfibre clothing never became as popular in the rest of the world as it was during the 1990s in Europe, microfibre apparel and accessories remain reasonably popular within certain niche applications.
Recently, the popularity of microfibre has endured a significant hit due to the ongoing controversy surrounding microfibre pollution. Despite the somewhat misleading nomenclature, microfibre fabric is not the greatest contributor to microfibre pollution, and common fabrics such as polyester and rayon actually contribute to this ecological disaster far more than microfibre fabric. Partially due to its name and also due to the fact that microfibre does, indeed, contribute to microfibre pollution, consumer sentiment toward this useful and inexpensive fabric has worsened.
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Most microfibre fabrics consist of a combination of polyester and polyamide (nylon). Textile manufacturers produce these two fibres separately and then fuse them together using heat.
Due to its relatively high tensile strength, it’s possible to form polyester into a wide variety of shapes. The cores of most microfibres are polyester, and these polyester cores are commonly star-shaped or asterisk-shaped.
Textile manufacturers then fit polyamide into the gaps between the “points” of these polyester fibres. Polyamide is considerably less dense than polyester, and it has less tensile strength. Therefore, it’s difficult to make polyamide into complex shapes, but this textile serves as an ideal filler substance.
Together, polyester creates the structure of microfibres, and polyamide provides the bulk. When used for cleaning cloths, polyester is responsible for the scrubbing action while polyamide provides absorbency and improves the thickness of the cloth.
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Since microfibres can be as small as 0.2 deniers in diameter, textile manufacturers cannot extrude the polyester fibres used in microfibre production through conventional spinnerets. Instead, they use long, metallic tubes, and the resulting polyester fibres are allowed to cool before they are melded with miniscule polyamide strips using heat.
At this point, it’s possible to dye microfibres or subject them to chemical treatments that improve heat resistance or provide other desirable qualities. Completed microfibres are then woven into long sheets of fabric and transported to facilities that manufacture end products.
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Microfibre fabrics are used in a wide variety of different contexts. Here are a few examples of the ways that people around the world use this unique fabric:
Microfibre is uniquely suited for cleaning. The original designers of this fabric combined polyester with polyamide to provide a synergy of durability and absorbency.
Due to the unique design of its fibres, microfibre cloth can pick up more dirt and grime than other types of cloth. Scientific research suggests that microfibre may even be useful for removing dangerous microbes and viruses from surfaces.
Since microfibre is highly absorbent and durable, fabric producers use this substance to make all sorts of different towels. From bath sheets to kitchen towels to washcloths, microfibre is an incredibly popular towel material.
While somewhat less common, microfibre is also used to make sheets and pillowcases as a result of its absorbency and unparalleled softness. Furniture manufacturers sometimes use microfibre as an upholstery material due to its combined absorbency and moisture impermeability. Microfibre is also a relatively common material for rugs and throw blankets.
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Microfibre’s electrostatic properties make it an excellent filtration material. As a result, this substance is used as an industrial filtration fiber in a variety of different applications. Some construction contractors and builders also use microfibre as an insulation material due to its high fibre density.
The primary attributes of microfibre that make this substance desirable for apparel and accessories are its softness, durability, and moisture-wicking properties. Most commonly used to make women’s skirts and jackets, microfibre is also desired for its resistance to stains. Certain types of microfibre also reasonably approximate the hand of leather textiles, making this fabric popular for belts, wallets, handbags, and other accessory items that would otherwise feature genuine or imitation leather.
China is the world’s epicenter of synthetic textile production. As a result, the majority of the world’s microfibre products originated in China with the United States and European Union also being significant microfibre producers.
Microfibre is one of the least expensive textiles. While it can be marginally more expensive than less complex forms of polyester or polyamide, it is far more reasonably priced than silk, cotton, or other natural fibres.
There are quite a few different types of microfibre. Here are a few of the most popular forms of this unique fabric:
Flat-weave microfibre is one of the most durable forms of this textile, but it is not as absorbent as split-weave microfibre. Most microfibre garments and accessories feature flat-weave forms of this fabric.
Split-weave microfibre features fibres that are split during production, resulting in the formation of countless tiny loops on the surface of microfibre fabric. While flat-weave microfibre is soft and smooth, split-weave microfibre clings to your skin when you touch it.
Technically a type of microfibre due to the small diameter of its fibres, micromodal is a 100%-polyamide fabric that serves as a softer, finer alternative to conventional modal fabric. Compared to polyester-polyamide microfibre fabrics, micromodal is stretchier and less durable.
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As one of the first microfibre products to be developed, ultrasuede is a competitor of genuine suede leather. Ultrasuede fibres are generally somewhat wider than the fibres used in other microfibre fabrics, but since they are under 1 denier in diameter, ultrasuede is considered to be a type of microfibre.
Prolen is a trademarked microfibre fabric consisting solely of polypropylene. This textile can have either high or low elasticity, and it is somewhat softer than polyester-polyamide microfibre fabrics.
Terry is one of the most common types of weaves for towels, and many microfibre towels feature terry weaves. This type of microfibre is less commonly used in non-towel applications.
Named for its raised, grid-like pattern, waffle weave microfibre is uniquely suited for glass cleaning. This type of microfibre’s waffle pattern reduces its surface contact, providing increased glide and reduced friction.
Chenille microfibre features thick, finger-like protuberances of fibre held together by a thin base fabric. Commonly used to make sponges and car wash mitts, chenille microfibre is used almost exclusively for cleaning applications.
Designed to be soft like suede, this type of microfibre has a remarkably low pile. It is ideal for cleaning glasses lenses, and many types of apparel, accessories, and upholstery feature suede microfibre.
The environmental impact of microfibre fabric is considerably negative. Even though microfibre production only makes up a relatively small portion of overall synthetic textile production worldwide, this substance has a polluting effect during every stage of its use cycle.
Producing polyester and polyamide involves a variety of toxic, man-made chemicals that are either difficult or entirely impossible to dispose of properly. During use, microfibre fabric releases plastic microfibres into the hydrosphere, contaminating waterways and contributing to plastic pollution. Once its useful life has expired, microfibre fills up landfills or becomes a polluting plastic since neither polyester nor polyamide are biodegradable.
Microfibre fabric consisting of recycled fibers may be eligible for Global Recycle Standard (GRS) certification. Additionally, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) provides certifications for various grades and types of microfibre fabric.
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