Producing the yarn from nanofibers has received great attention in recent years and several techniques have been developed in this concern. While composite nanofibres are mainly produced from CNT, there is not any reported work about production of nano fibrous composite yarn with nanopowder of natural fibers such as wool so far. This study aims at improving the hygroscopic properties of nylon 6 nanofibers by introducing wool fiber nanoparticles (WFNP) into PA nanofibres and spinning composite yarns with various contents of WFNP. Also, some physical, mechanical and morphological properties of composite nanofibers and yarns were evaluated. Initially, wool fibers were converted into powders using ball milling technique under optimum conditions. The solutions containing 12% W/W polymer and (0-7)% WFNP in formic acid were prepared. WFNP were dispersed to disrupt possible agglomerates using an ultrasonic homogenizer. These solutions were electrospun to produce composite nanofibre yarns containing WFNP via optimization of electrospinning parameters. Effect of nanoparticle concentration on morphology and average diameter of nanofibers were studied by manipulation of Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) micrographs. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) was applied to evaluate the quality of dispersion as well. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) results showed that no probable structural change has occurred in polymer, formic acid and nanoparticles composition. This study shows that increasing the concentration of nanoparticles led to increase on composite nanofibers diameter. Assessment of moisture regain of composite yarns revealed the effect of WFNP content, i.e. moisture absorption of PA nanofibres is improved by introducing the WFNP as hydrophilic sector. Results shows that WFNP content in the composite PA nanofibre yarn has a slight detrimental effect on the mechanical properties of composite yarns such as tenacity, breaking elongation, work of rupture and elastic modulus. Key Words : wool fiber nanoparticles, nylon 6 nanofibers, composite naofibre yarn, mechanical properties, morphology, ultrasonic process, hygroscopy
