Nylon is the mainstay of the commercial carpet industry today because of the fibers' high resilience, excellent wear characteristics, good dyeability, and acceptable aesthetics. For decades, manufacturers have chemically-treated carpet to impart resistance to water, soil, and oil-based staining. Such treatments usually involved the incorporation of perfluoroalkyl compounds for optimal dry soil protection. However, one drawback to the fiber has been its lack of resistance to staining, due to chemisorptions of acid dyes prevalent in foods and beverages onto Nylon's amine end groups. Treatments incorporating stainblockers are usually done during spinning or as a post-mill finish of Nylon. Stainblockers are typically aromatic sulfonic acids although nonaromatic sulfonic acid compounds have been claimed as to work as well. Pollen represents one of the most important source of natural allergens indoors, yet very little is known about the effect of the fluorohydrocarbons and anionic acid groups in modified Nylon on their adhesive behavior to carpet. The motivation for this work is aimed at achieving a better understanding of the adhesion mechanism to the soil and stain-resistant addictives. We attached a pollen grain to the tip of the AFM cantilever by means of epoxy glue and a micromanipulator. This ‘colloid' probe technique was then used to measure the pollen adhesion force with the thiol analogs of the fluoroalkyls and aromatic sulfonic acids. The thiols were first chemisorbed on gold surfaces to form self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) before the AFM force measurements. Comparison was made between the strength of pollen adhesion and the component's surface energy.

Extended Abstract Status: Not Uploaded