Monsanto Company

Lemoyne W Plischke

Scott E Osborn

Chester C Wu

John H Southern

Walter J Nunning

Rupert J Snooks, Jr

Donald E Danly

Dror Selivansky

Vincent J Farrugia

Melt-spun filaments having a substance incorporated therein to kill fleas and staple length fibers made therefrom are described. Carpets containing these fibers are useful for ridding households and household pets of fleas.

Antiflea fibers

Nylon 66 polymer is stabilized against heat and light during its preparation by conducting the polymerization in the presence of certain copper complexes, such as cupric amminohydroxide, and KBr and/or KI. Less metallic copper is formed during polymerization than if copper salts (e.g. copper acetate) are used instead of the copper complexes.

Process for preparing heat and light stabilized Nylon 66 polymer

A polyamide (preferably nylon 66) partially oriented feed yarn contains a small amount of branching agent and has an elongation between 45 and 150%. The feed yarn can be textured by the friction twist process to yield a textured yarn having crimp development similar to yarn textured by the much more expensive pin twist method.

Partially oriented nylon yarn and process

Antimicrobial activity is imparted to nylon during its preparation by adding to the nylon-forming monomer(s), a zinc compound (e.g. zinc ammonium carbonate) and a phosphorus compound (e.g. benzene phosphinic acid). The compounds are added in amounts sufficient to form in situ a reaction product containing at least 300 ppm of zinc, based on the weight of nylon prepared. Fibers made from the resulting nylon contain the reaction product uniformly dispersed therein and have antimicrobial activity of a permanent nature.

Antimicrobial nylon prepared in water with zinc compound and phosphorus

In the batch melt polymerization process for preparing 6TA/6IA copolymer having a high 6TA content, i.e., greater than 45%, successive batches of copolymer can be prepared without cleaning out the autoclave between successive batches by conducting the preparation of each batch in the presence of a small amount of a base, for example, sodium hydroxide.

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Lillian, AL, United States of America

Lemoyne W Plischke