Non-woven fabrics bonded with pH sensitive film-forming silane crosslinked acrylate interpolymers

Claim 1

A non-woven fabric dispersible in aqueous media having a pH substantially outside the range of about 4.5 to about 8.5 comprising a web of overlapping, intersecting fibers bonded together with a film-forming polymeric composition having water-barrier properties at neutral pH's in the range of between about 4.5 and about 8.5 and solubilizable at a pH substantially outside said neutral pH range, said composition comprising a silane-crosslinked interpolymer of about 0.5 to 5 parts by weight of a first monomer selected from the group consisting of the alkyl acrylates wherein the alkyl group has from one to eight carbon atoms, and about 1 part by weight of a second monomer selected from the group consisting of acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, fumaric acid, maleic acid, maleic anhydride, itaconic acid, dimethylaminoethyl acrylate, dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate, diethylaminoethyl acrylate, diethylaminoethyl methacrylate, tert.-butylaminoethyl acrylate and tert.-butylaminoethyl methacrylate, and about 0.9 to 1.5% by weight, based on the combined weight of said first and second monomers, of a crosslinking monomer selected from the group consisting of the silane monomers having the structural formula: ##STR2## wherein: R is selected from the group consisting of CH 3 --, CH 3 CH 2 --, CH 3 O-- and CH 3 CH 2 O--; R 1 and R 2 are each selected from the group consisting of CH 3 -- and CH 3 CH 2 --; R 3 is selected from the group consisting of H--, CH 3 -- and CH 3 CH 2 --; and n is 0 or a positive integer not greater than 8.