Fiber/absorbent polymer composites and method of forming same

Claim 1

Process for producing absorbent, fluffy batts of fibers, which comprises the steps of: (a) applying an aqueous solution comprising a salt of acrylic or methacrylic acid to a surface of an aggregation of fibers, the amount of said solution being sufficient to penetrate said aggregation to a predetermined depth so as contact some but not all of the fibers in said aggregation, said amount being sufficient to provide not more than about 50 weight percent salt, based on weight of fibers; (b) irradiating said aggregation containing aqueous solution with electromagnetic or corpuscular ionizing radiation to convert said salt of acrylic or methacrylic acid to a water-swellable polymer; (c) individualizing the fibers to disperse the water-swellable polymer in the fibers; and (d) collecting the individualized fibers and water-swellable polymer in the form of a fluffy batt of fibers having distributed therethrough isolated portions of water-swellable polymer affixed to individual fibers or to small groups of fibers.