IUCrJ (Jul 2024)

Scanning WAXS microscopy of regenerated cellulose fibers at mesoscopic resolution

  • Sara Johansson,
  • Francesco Scattarella,
  • Sebastian Kalbfleisch,
  • Ulf Johansson,
  • Christopher Ward,
  • Crispin Hetherington,
  • Herbert Sixta,
  • Stephen Hall,
  • Cinzia Giannini,
  • Ulf Olsson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1107/S205225252400383X
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 4
pp. 570 – 577

Abstract

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In this work, regenerated cellulose textile fibers, Ioncell-F, dry-wet spun with different draw ratios, have been investigated by scanning wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) using a mesoscopic X-ray beam. The fibers were found to be homogeneous on the 500 nm length scale. Analysis of the azimuthal angular dependence of a crystalline Bragg spot intensity revealed a radial dependence of the degree of orientation of crystallites that was found to increase with the distance from the center of the fiber. We attribute this to radial velocity gradients during the extrusion of the spin dope and the early stage of drawing. On the other hand, the fiber crystallinity was found to be essentially homogeneous over the fiber cross section.

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