ABSTRACT
Acknowledgment................................................................................................................ 126
References .......................................................................................................................... 127
The development of polyamide fibers is quite interesting in the history of synthetic fibers.
Nylon, the first commercial fiber product of polyamide, was marketed for manufacturing
women’s hosiery by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company in 1938. The immediate success
made nylon a household name all over the world. It also provided DuPont a string of 50 years
of strong earnings. The success of nylon led to the commercialization of other synthetic fibers
such as polyester, polyacrylonitrile, and polyolefin fibers, as well as inorganic fibers such as
carbon and boron. These developments have been strongly supported by the progress in
polymer and fiber chemistry and material science. In retrospect, therefore, one must credit the
chemical industry for its pursuit of new technology and vision of new materials.
