Wool fiber was modified by steam explosion at different pressure in the experiment reported in this paper. After the modification of the steam explosion, SEM results show that some scales on the wool fiber were destroyed and some tiny grooves were produced on the surface of the fiber. FTIR tested results show that there were no evident changes in the chemical composition of the fiber during the explosion treatment. X-Ray tested results show that the crystallinity of the fiber decreased as the treating pressure increased, which agrees well with the thermal analysis results. In the thermal analysis, results of DSC show that the temperatures respectively corresponding to vaporization of water and cleavage of S-S-bond decreased as the explosion pressure increased. The decrease of the thermal decomposition energy of the treated fiber indicates that steam explosion perhaps destroyed some crystals arid some crosslinks of macromolecular chains in the fiber. The treatment also leads to some changes of the fiber properties, including the decrease of the moisture regain and slightly decrease of the solubility in caustic solution.
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