During the 1st quarter of our third year Project we continued to make

 substantial progress in processing polymers and their additives 

with the non-toxic biodegradable cyclodextrins (CDs) to improve 

the resultant textiles. A summary of our recent and past efforts 

appears in “Molecular Processing of Polymers with Cyclodextrins”, 

A.E. Tonelli,Advances In Polymer Science, Vol. 222, Chapter 3, 115-173, 2009. 

Not only are we able to improve textiles with CDs, but we are also 

learning about the bases for the fundamental behaviors of polymer 

and textile materials through creation of unique model material 

samples using CDs. For example,we have observed that the formation of 

non-stoichiometric CD-inclusion compounds (ICs) containing an excess of 

nylon 6 (N6) [(n-s)-N6-CD-ICs], with chains that partially dangle and crystallize, 

are effective nucleating agents for the melt-crystallization of bulk N6.

 Not only do (n-s)-N6-CD-ICs provide effective and non-toxic 

alternatives to nucleating agents such as Talc to control the 

morphologies and properties of N6, but they may be used to study 

the crystallization of the constrained N6 chains dangling from 

CD-IC crystalline surfaces, and by comparison the crystallization 

of polymers in general.