LAUSR

ABSTRACT The production of clothing in recent years is mainly based on synthetic materials. Synthetics such as polyacrylonitrile fiber (PAN) significantly reduce the costs of clothing production. PAN fiber requires considerably more water than natural fibers in the treatment process, which has a negative impact on the environment. This is quite different in the case of natural fiber wool, which is a biodegradable material. Due to the high quality of its products, wool is also a material highly appreciated by the textile industry. Differences between the materials were determined by testing electrical properties (resistance and impedance), which may represent differences at the molecular level. As the use of the proposed method is at the preliminary stage, measurements of fiber diameter, heat resistance, and breaking stress were also performed to supplement the results. The electrical characteristic tests showed a higher resistance of wool compared to PAN fiber, which indicates that wool is a better dielectric than PAN fiber. The breaking stress tests showed that PAN fiber was the weakest of the assessed fibers. The measurements have also shown that the heat resistance of the samples of wool from alpaca were higher than those of PAN fiber. The wool samples from angora goats were characterized by the lowest heat resistance.