1.3.
2 Polyamides
The early development of polyamides started with the work ofW.H. Carothers and his colleagues, who, in
1935, first synthesized nylon-6,6—a polyamide of hexamethylene diamine and adipic acid—after
extensive and classical researches into condensation polymerization.
Commercial production of nylon-6,6 and its conversion into fibers was started by the Du Pont
Company in 1939. In a parallel development in Germany, Schlack developed polyamides by ring-opening
polymerization of cyclic lactams, and nylon-6 derived from caprolactam was introduced in 1939. Today
nylon-6,6 and nylon-6 account for nearly all of the polyamides produced for fiber applications.
Nylon-6,6 and nylon-6 are also used for plastics applications. Besides these two polyamides, very many
other aliphatic polyamides, have been prepared in the laboratory, and a few of them (nylon-11, nylon-12,
and nylon-6,10 in particular) have attracted specialized interest as plastics materials. However, only about
10% of the nylons produced are used for plastics production. Virtually all of the rest goes for the
production of fibers where the market is shared, roughly equally, between nylon-6 and nylon-6,6.
(Nylon is the trade name for the polyamides from unsubstituted, non-branched aliphatic monomers.
A polyamide made from either an amino acid or a lactam is called nylon-x, where x is the number of
carbon atoms in the repeating unit. A nylon made from a diamine and a dibasic acid is designated by two
numbers, in which the first represents the number of carbons in the diamine chain and the second the
number of carbons in the dibasic acid.)
For a variety of technical reasons the development of aromatic polyamides was much slower in
comparison. Commercially introduced in 1961, the aromatic polyamides have expanded the maximum
temperature well above 2008C. High-tenacity, high-modulus polyamide fibers (aramid fibers) have
provided new levels of properties ideally suited for tire reinforcement. More recently there has been
considerable interest in some new aromatic glassy polymers, in thermoplastic polyamide elastomers, and
in a variety of other novel materials.
Melt Temperatures of Aliphatic Polyamides
Polyamide Tm (8C)
Nylon-6,6 265
Nylon-6,8 240
Nylon-6,10 225
Nylon-6,12 212
Nylon-6 230
Nylon-7 223
Nylon-11 188
Nylon-12 180
The electrical insulation properties of the nylons are reasonably good at room temperature, under
conditions of low humidity, and at low frequencies. Because of the presence of polar amide groups, they
are not good insulators for high-frequency work, and since they absorb water, the electrical insulation
properties deteriorate as the humidity increases (see Figure 1.18).
The properties of nylons are considerably affected by the amount of crystallization and by the size of
morphological structures, such as spherulites, which in turn, are generally influenced by the processing
conditions. Thus, a molding of nylon-6, slowly cooled and subsequently annealed, may be 50–60%
crystalline, whereas a rapidly cooled thin-walled molding may be only 10% crystalline
[Link].2 Applications
The most important application of nylons is as fibers, which account for nearly 90% of the world
production of all nylons. Virtually all of the rest is used for plastic applications. Because of their high cost,
they have not become general-purpose materials, such as polyethylene and polystyrene, which are
available at about one-third the price of nylons. Nylons have nevertheless found steadily increasing
application as plastics materials for specialty purposes where the combination of toughness, rigidity,
abrasion resistance, reasonable heat resistance, and gasoline resistance is important.
The largest plastics applications of nylons have been in mechanical engineering [14]—nylon-6, nylon-
6,6, nylon-6,10, nylon-11, and nylon-12 being mainly used. These applications include gears, cams,
bushes, bearings, and valve seats. Zippers made of nylon last longer than traditional ones of fabric or
metal. Nylon moving parts have the advantage that they may often be operated without lubrication, and
they may often be molded in one piece.
Among the aforesaid nylons, nylon-11 and nylon-12 have the lowest water absorption and are easy to
process, but there is some loss in mechanical properties. For the best mechanical properties, the nylon-6,6
would be considered, but this material is also the most difficult to process and has high water absorption.
Nylon-6 is easier to process but has even higher water absorption
Glass-filled nylons form the most important group of glass-filled varieties of thermoplastics. Glassreinforced
nylon plastics have high rigidity, excellent creep resistance, low coefficient of friction, high
heat-deflection temperature, good low-frequency electrical insulation properties, and they are nonmagnetic
in nature. Therefore they have replaced metals in many applications.
Nylons reinforced with glass fibers are thus widely used in domestic appliances, in housings and
casing, in car components, including radiator parts, and in the telecommunication field for relay coil
formers and tag blocks. Glass-bad-filled nylons have found use in bobbins. Carbon-fiber reinforcement
has been used with nylon-6 and nylon-6–nylon-12 mixtures. These materials have found use in the
aerospace field and in tennis rackets
Industrial
Polymers,
Specialty
Polymers,
and
Their
Applications
Manas Chanda
Salil K. Roy
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742