Polyester (PET) fabrics coated with environmentally friendly adhesive and its interface structure and adhesive properties with rubber

Abstract Due to the chemical inertness of the polyester (PET) fiber surface, it often needs to be immersed in a traditional resorcinol-formaldehyde-latex (RFL) dipping solution before it can be used in rubber composite. However, the RFL dipping system contains toxic components, resorcinol and formaldehyde, and is gradually banned. In this article, a novel resorcinol-formaldehyde-free environmentally friendly adhesion promoter for dipping treatment of PET fiber was synthesized. Specifically, water soluble ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE) and diethylenetriamine (DETA) were introduced into the new dipping solution to replace the toxic ingredients of resorcinol and formaldehyde in RFL dipping system. We use polyester fabrics to study the effects of reaction conditions, chemical structures and interfacial adhesion mechanism on the treatment results to achieve the level of conventional RFL treatment. The surface chemical compositions of modified PET fabrics were characterized by attenuated total reflectance fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results showed that the fabric surface was successfully coated with the dipping layer. In addition, interfacial adhesive properties between modified PET fabrics and rubber were studied. The results showed that the peel adhesive strength between the modified PET fabric and the rubber was 17 N/mm, which was comparable to the RFL dipping system.