Chitosan staple fibers and their chemical modification with some aldehydes

Nine wet-spinning conditions were examined for the preparation of chitosan staple fibers, and novel five N-alkylidene and N-arylidene-chitosan staple fibers were obtained by the post-treatment of the chitosan fibers with alde hydes including vanillin. The tenacity and elongation values of the chitosa n filaments were almost unchanged by their post-treatment with monoaldehyde s except that with formaldehyde and glyoxal. However, these values decrease d significantly in the partially N-modified filaments, which were obtained by the pretreatment with vanillin. The chitosan filaments (31-79 mu m in di ameter) had a scaly structure on the filament surface as examined by SEM ob servation. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.