Monday 20 May 2013

Polymeric Delivery Systems for Sustainable Nonwovens

Robert Lochhead, Professor and Director of the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials at the University of Southern Mississippi couldn’t get to Orlando but provided a voice-over for the slide show which was mainly a review of the latest patents of interest to sustainable nonwovens. 
  • He proposed reducing the water content of lotions for wet wipes by using Shinoda’s 1964 principle of phase inversion to make more concentrated emulsions.
  • USP 8327579 B2 (Dec 2012) proposes using waste nonwovens with PU foams to make floating islands which protect small fishes and could be pre-seeded to grow crops.
  • US Application 2013/0012093 A1 suggests using fibres made of polyethylene extended with vegetable waxes to deliver perfumes etc.
  • US 8268738 B2 (Sept 2012) from Kimberly Clark proposes overcoming the brittleness of PLA spunbonds by using PEG plasticiser compatiblized with maleinized PP.
  • US Application 2011/0152818 A1 suggests cellulose acetate butyrate/polyhydroxybutanoate to make thermally bondable nonwovens
  • US Application 2011/0300382 from P&G suggests making nonwovens from alkyd resins made spinnable into fibres by vitrification.
  • US Application 2013/0023608 A1 proposes using biobased thermoplastic elastomers and thermoplastic starches to make bicomponent fibres.
  • US Application 2013/0023176 A1 proposes making nonwovens from the currently wasted coir fibre from coconut farming.
  • US Application 2012/0027838 A1 covered ingestible nonwovens made from Ethylex 2035 starch used as a carrier for drugs.
There were numerous applications for patents from P&G on dissolvable fibres comprising surfactants, PVA polymers, plasticisers and rheology modifiers under the headings “What if nonwovens could be detergents”, “Nonwoven shampoo”, “Nonwoven laundry detergent”.

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