Nylon 66 Research Paper

Nylon 66 is a type of polyamide or nylon. It is most commonly found in fishing nets, ropes, cords and fishing line making it the camping and leisure material of the century. It is made up of two monomers which each containing 6 carbon atoms, hexamethylenediamne and adipic acid (figure 1.), which give nylon 66 its name. This specific type of nylon was invented by Wallace Carothers at DuPont’s research facility on the 28th of February, 1935. Properties of this polymer that make it the best polymer suited for fishing line includes: high elasticity, high tensile strength, cheap to produce and its resistance to abrasions and chemicals in the water. Nylon 6,6 is one of the newer materials used for making fishing lines however, many other

Equal parts of both monomers are combined with water in a reactor. This mixture is then crystallised to make nylon salt, which has specifically stoichiometric equivalents. The nylon salt formed then goes into a reaction vessel which is where the polymerisation process takes place in either in batches or continuously. Removing water drives the reaction n HOOC-(CH2)4-COOH + n H2N-(CH2)6-NH2 → [-OC-( CH2)4-CO-NH-(CH2)6-NH-] n + 2n H2O to polymerisation through the acid and amine functions forming amide bonds.

Figure 5. Hexamethylenediamne (top) and Adipic acid (bottom), monomers used for polycondensation of Nylon 66.
As a result, nylon 6,6 is formed. It can then either be extruded and granulated or it can be directly spun into fibres by extrusion through a spinneret and cooling to form filaments. Currently, nylon 6,6 costs $1.38 to $1.46 (figure 6.), per pound to produce making it one of the cheapest polymers to produce, therefore allowing it to also be the cheapest type of fishing line on the

General reaction of alkali hydrolysis
The nylon polymer also only has a partial resistance to sunlight and weather conditions. T

he ultraviolet rays from sunlight causes the amino groups of the amide groups to react with the oxygen present in the air, which then produces groups that are more reactive and have a higher water solubility. Those groups formed then continues to react which then causes the breaking of inter-polymer hydrogen bonds and polymer fragmentation resulting in severe weakening of the structure of the material.

Comparison of lines
Overall it is clear that nylon 6,6 (monofilament) fishing line is the best compared to the other materials and lines. Refer to figure 8. For comparison table.

History of the fishing line
Will be in a timeline for final and will be spoken about briefly

Conclusion
Nylon 6,6 meets all the criteria of a good material for fishing line and in comparison to other previous materials it has improved greatly. While this material does have its faults its pros definitely outweigh the cons, thus leaving nylon 6,6 as one of the best camping and leisure materials of the