High elongation splittable multicomponent fibers comprising starch and polymers

Abstract

Splittable multicomponent fibers, to split fibers made from such splittable fibers, to a processes for making such splittable and split fibers, and to nonwovens and other substrates made form the split fibers. The splittable multicomponent fibers can comprise one component comprising thermoplastic starch and another component comprising a non-starch thermoplastic polymer, wherein: (i) said second component is capable of being split or removed from said first component to provide at least one split fiber consisting essentially of said first component; and (ii) wherein the split fiber of said first component can have good elongation properties. The splittable multicomponent fibers can also provide split fibers of the thermoplastic starch component. The split fibers corresponding to the thermoplastic polymer component will have a greater elongation than directly spun thermoplastic fibers which have an equivalent mass through put as the thermoplastic polymer component of the multicomponent fiber and which have the same diameter as the split fiber.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.