PIRA Future of Wipes: London - 3-5th July 2006

Key points

• 110 delegates attended this highly-focussed short-notice conference, much to the delight of the organisers (PIRA - UK ) who plan to repeat it in a larger venue next year.
• Compared to other FMCG packaging, wet-wipes packaging needs to become easier to open and seal, and more distinctive, while meeting environmental concerns.
• Ahead of the ban on marketing cosmetic products tested on animals (March 2009), the EU now allowed promotion of “not tested on animals” where this could be proven for all ingredients.
• Clorox creates virtual R&D scale by Technology Partnering. Despite their small R&D operation, they and their partners claim 5 times as many relevant patents as P&G.
• Amcor Flexibles is developing packaging to improve fluid distribution in wet-wipes.
• Costco's 15% cotton wipe is now No.3 in the baby-wipe market and will soon be No.2
• Chinese made Household wet-wipes in canisters are now being sold in dollar and discount stores in the USA .
• “Flushable by Size” wipes will cause more problems in sewage works as the market grows. Dispersible products are becoming necessary.
• There is a plethora of data on wipes markets.

See a need, Fill a need

Jeff Slosman, President of the National Wiper Alliance (USA) gave this keynote address to start the conference. The global wipes market had tripled in size since 1997 and Household wipes had grown most rapidly to reach 38% of the $6bn market by 2004, and were now accounting for 45% of the total.

Thinking primarily of the pre-impregnated category, further growth could be expected in:

• Water-activated personal, baby and homecare wipes for use where water was readily available (bathroom/kitchen)
• Automotive and industrial.
• Consumer wipes adapted for industrial use.
• Food service wipes.
• Dust attracting wipes.
• Skin care – consumer, institutional and medical wipes
• Skin cleansing wipes.
• Dual-purpose, two-sided wipes.
• Multi-use wipes to replace single-use.
• New infant wipes – driven by a mini baby boom in the USA .With regard to flushable wipes, increased usage is leading to increased attention to the problems they cause in waste water treatment plants. Dispersible products are needed. “Flushable by size” may not be a valid route as usage increases.
Numerous slides covered the import/export statistics for the USA , all nominally dealing with wipes. ( These were hard to interpret due to the fuzzy nature of the import coding for nonwovens, and few, if any numbers would have been wipe-specific. Ed. ) However Mr Slosman was clear that China was producing wet-wipes for export and these were now appearing in the USA .

Cosmetic regulations and wet-wipes

Hadjira Mezaiti, the Industrial and Scientific Affairs Manager of EDANA ( Belgium ) introduced the EDANA Wet-Wipe Working Group (WWWG) and reviewed the impact of the EU cosmetic regulations on wet-wipes. The WWWG now comprised 14 companies who together produced over 85% of the wet-wipes in Europe . Their mission was to be recognised as the voice of the industry on all wet-wipe issues and to co-ordinate the activities of the industry in matters of mutual interest, e.g. product safety, environmental impacts and benefits to society.

With regard to product safety, there were no specific wet-wipe regulations but the lotion applied to baby and personal care products had to meet the Cosmetic regulations, and that applied to surface wipes could come under the Detergents or Medical Devices regulations. The Cosmetics Directive (76/768/EEC) restricted the ingredients that could be used, controlled the way products had to be labelled, and was progressively moving to banning the use of animal testing for cosmetic ingredients. Finished product testing on animals had been banned since September 2004 and lotion-ingredient testing would be banned from March 2009. There would also be a ban on marketing cosmetics which had been tested on animals (outside the EU) no later than March 2009. There would however (June 2006 amendment) be freedom to promote “not tested on animals” on the pack but it was up to the producer to prove that all chemicals throughout the supply chain had never been involved with animal testing at any time, anywhere in the world.

Available test methods were now Skin Absorption and Sensitization (OECD 428 and 429), In-vitro skin corrosion (OECD 430/431) and In-vitro phototoxicity (OECD 432). While the above applied to the lotion specifically, nonwoven manufacturers need to consider how chemicals on their fabrics migrate into the lotion, and any other possible substrate/lotion interactions. Animal testing of fibre finishes and additives would be relevant.

Asked how the FDA controlled wet wipes in the USA , Ms Mezaiti thought the system was broadly similar. Were there similar regulations for household and industrial wipes? Yes, the Biocides directive would come into play for any product claiming to remove germs from surfaces.

Technology Partnering the Clorox Way

David Lowrance the Manager of Clorox's Technology Brokerage and Bill Ouellette (Research Fellow) explained how The Clorox Company managed to develop new products with an R&D budget less than a tenth of Procter and Gamble's. Clorox creates virtual R&D scale by partnering with many other companies and their Technology Brokerage orchestrates this partnering. To illustrate this, while P&G has more than ten-times as many US patents as Clorox (in Clorox categories), Clorox plus technology partners have 5 times as many patents as P&G.

The key to success in creating virtual R&D is to gain access to the partner's innovations and this is achieved by a process called “Win-Balancing”. At first both Clorox and the partner pool a small part of the intellectual property, but over time with good experiences and improved profitability on both sides, all IP is shared. Clorox no longer source materials based solely on price and quality, they pay extra to get access to the innovative skills of the supplier. That means they only partner with creative suppliers with relevant R&D activities. Suppliers are ranked according to their Alignment Metrics (product range, collaborative culture, strategic fit) and Innovation Metrics ( the value of their innovations at three stages, Initial assessment, Commercialization and Product launches.) Only those scoring highly on both metrics become suppliers and the rankings are shared with suppliers and failed suppliers so that they can see where they fit.

Once on board, the innovators in the supply chain are encouraged to interact directly with the users of Clorox products using prototypes and simulations to stimulate discussion and drive new product design. Now, 80% of Clorox's new products arise from partnering.

In passing Mr Lowrance commented on the different packaging required by US consumers of household wipes. Canisters were preferred to flow-packs because they could stand up under the sink, had a small footprint and were less likely to get lost as the wipes pack empties. Furthermore the canister approach offered better prospects for differentiation and co-ordination with Clorox's other cleaning products.

Asked how they got the innovators out of the lab and into the focus groups, Mr Lowrance said they were “dragged, kicking and screaming”. How many staff did the Brokerage have? This was confidential but it was no more than a few dozen. Did they single or multi-source? Generally they used multiple suppliers but tended to have just one supplier for each technology-need. Was their any evidence that paying more for innovation led to increased R&D spending by suppliers? No, but Clorox certainly got a bigger share of the available spend. Weren't they concerned that if their competitors did the same there would be no benefit unless suppliers increased R&D? No, their competitors wouldn't follow because the approach was counter-cultural.

Innovative Wipes Packaging

Simon Haarburger, Strategic Healthcare Director – Healthcare for Amcor Flexibles (UK) , a $1.67 billion packaging company with 57 plants in 22 countries provided a case-study of the development of a pack for a feminine hygiene wipe. Their brief was to design an innovative single-wipe pack with soft and silent texture, easy opening and capable of giving an 18 month shelf life. They adapted their EasyPack easy-open/multi-reclose system with a new polyethylene recipe to produce a pack rather like a mailing envelope. This has been launched in France , UK and Netherlands , is receiving excellent consumer feedback, and has allowed the brand owner to extend product life, and increase unit price. Mr Haarburburger thought the same approach could be used for other single-use wipes such as tanning and hair-coloration. Asked if he had an improved product for multi-wipe packs, he indicated they were working on it. More he couldn't say, but the new pack would include ideas for improving fluid distribution and may involve dispensing the wipes through the base of the pack rather than the top.

Nonwovens for Wipes

Susan Stansbury of Right Angle Concepts (USA) reviewed the various nonwovens used in wipes and their strengths and weaknesses:

• Air-laid is doing better than you think. Many producers are having a good time and keeping quite about it.
• Spunlace remains primarily suitable for premium personal applications: air-laid is used wherever low cost is important.
• Air-laid and spunlace are converging: air-laid adding longer fibres and spunlace adding pulp.
• Task-specific wipes will grow fastest.
• Even in baby-wipes expansion into new task specific products for older children is likely.
• There's a mini baby-boom underway in the USA .
• Water-activated wipes could be set for growth.
• Impregnated wipes will replace every liquid which has to be applied to a surface with a cloth or tissue.
• Ahlstrom Green Bay will have a line dedicated to cotton wipes.

Asked about water activated wipes, Ms Stansbury thought several companies were working on this mainly for skin-care applications. KC had a baby wash cloth and mitt using Coform. Imports from China ? Yes, Chinese-made canister packs of wet-wipes were being sold in the dollar stores for 1 or 2 dollars.

Consumer Wipes Outlook

Ian Butler, INDA's Director of Market Research and Statistics (USA) presented the wipes-related data from their Jan 2006 report on the Nonwovens Outlook to 2010. Between 2000 and 2005 the North American market had grown 75% from $1.6 to $2.8 billion (retail level) and household wipes had overtaken baby wipes, growing from 29% to 45% of sales. However in terms of nonwovens tonnage, the baby sector still accounted for 63% of the 120,000 tonnes used, household being 23% and personal care, 14%.

Of the Baby Wipe Market :
• KC had the largest share with 35% by value or 26% by numbers of wipes sold.
• P&G had 27% by value or 22% by number.
• Private label while only 32% by value had 47% of the market by numbers, reflecting their lower price.
• 35 billion baby wipes were sold in the same year as 18 billion diapers. This did not square with estimates of 4-6 wipes needed per diaper change (according to a survey of users) so was the market only half penetrated or were users using fewer wipes than they claimed?
• Baby wipes were expected to grow at 5% per annum through 2010.
• In 2005, 36% of babywipes used spunlace, 33% used air-laid pulp, 29% used Coform or wet-laid.
• Private label will stay with air-laid to maintain their price advantage.
• Costco's 15% cotton wipe is now No. 3 in the market, and could soon be No. 2.

The Personal Care Wipe Market• 33% by value is cosmetic/facial, 30% is adult toilet, 23% is general purpose including bathing, 6% is femcare, and 5% is childrens flushable.
• KC have 75% of the adult toilet sector with Cottonelle, which is now sold in tubs having recovered from the roll-wipe failure.
• Childrens flushable is led by K-C's “Just for Kids” with 36%, followed by P&G's “Kandoo” with 29%, and P&G's “Tidy Tikes” with 11%. Private label has 22%. This is a high growth sector, believed to be above 40% per annum. Expect a range of other wet-wipes for children's use.
• Flushable products are still causing problems in some sewer systems. The INDA/EDANA task force is now due to report guidelines by the end of this year.
• “Truly flushable dispersible and biodegradable wipes with strength will be a winner” and may require a move to air-laid pulp to achieve.

The Household wipes market• Wet floor cleaners lead with 31% share, Disinfectant wipes follow with a 30% share, Electrostatic dusters 18%, Furniture/window 9%, Cleaners 9% and Dry wipes/mops have 3%.
• P&G dominate the wet-floor category with Swiffer® (Wet and Wet-Jet - 70%); Pledge® has 14% and Clorox 6%
• Clorox dominate the Hard Surface category with 61%, Lysol have 23% and Private label, 7%. Overall growth will be 7-8% through 2010, with most growth now in Private Label. The canister packs now dominate – easier to display, store and seal.

Wipes share of the total NA nonwoven market has grown from just under 10% in 1995 to just over 15% in 2005 and is expected to hit 16% by 2010. 45% of all 2005 wipes were spunlaced, 31% airlaid and 17% Coform or wetlaid.

Asked if these production statistics could be rationalised with the retail data, Mr Butler thought they could.

European Wipes Market

Maria Lindahl of Euromonitor International (UK) thought busier lifestyles and more singles households were driving the growth of wipes in Europe . Wipes were providing time-savings, ease of use and convenience, so the sector (Personal plus Homecare) had grown from €0.5bn in 1997 to almost €2.5bn in 2005, the statistics being based on value at retail level, and included starter kits.
• Baby wipes dominated the Personal sector in 2005 with 70%, Cosmetics had 25%, General Purpose 4% and Fem-Hygiene 1%.
• Baby wipes had grown at 10% year on average since 1997, but this was expected to fall to 1.5% average over the next 5 years.
• Cosmetic wipes had grown at 35% CAGR since 97 and would continue at 3.5% until 2010.
• General purpose wipes had hardly grown and would decline in future.
• Feminine hygiene wipes showed the biggest growth from a low base (58% CAGR, 97-05) and would continue at 10% over the next 5 years.

Within Homecare:• Wet Floor wipes, non-existent in 1997 had shown a staggering 110% CAGR to 2005 but would now show a decline of about 3% through 2010. Early growth went to expensive starter kits. Floor wipes-only would grow at about 1% through 2010.
• Electrostatic wipes grew at 10% per year to 2005 but would decline by about 2% per year to 2010.
• General purpose wipes had grown at about 15% per year to 2005 and would continue to grow at about 2% through 2010.

Wipes sales in Europe have been mainly in the big 5 countries (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain) but highest growth rates will now occur in the others, Norway and Turkey leading the Personal Care sector and Switzerland and the Netherlands leading the Homecare sector.

Kids personal care – flushable wipes for the 3-7 year olds will show high growth.

Tomorrow's Applications

Henri Laetervo of Suominen Nonwovens Ltd ( Finland ) reviewed current wiping markets and took us through the products he thought would be developing over the next few years:

• Wipes carrying medications. (normally applied to the skin as creams or liquids.)
• Non-aqueous wipes for whole-body cleansing in the absence of bathrooms, or as an alternative to showering.
• Any application currently using a dry-wipe and fluid would be sold as a pre-impregnated wipe.
• Anti-viral wipes.
• Industrial wipes tailored to specific critical cleaning jobs (e.g. printing machine wipes).

Industrial Wipes

Sylvain d'Incau of DuPont (Switzerland) re-presented the data on the EU industrial wipes market from last month's Vienna conference and mentioned their latest developments for clean room, car polishing and static control.

The clean-room market was worth €30-60million and was growing at 8-10% per annum. 70% of the market was now spunlaced pulp/polyester which gave good absorbency as well as low linting. Dupont Sontara “Micropore” was specially manufactured under clean-room conditions.

Their Krytox® car cleaning/polishing cloth could be used for finish polishing on new paint or sealing a newly painted repair. It was also good for polishing chrome or plastic, and could be used instead of the best liquid polishes by professionals or consumers. It was a viscose/polyester spunlace, 30 x 40 cms, and 3 wipes were needed per car. The lotion was mainly water but the polymer ingredients were the key to its performance. Taxi drivers and chauffeurs loved it because it could be used in minutes between jobs to keep the cars looking great.

Their static control wipes have been developed for final wiping prior to painting, because many surfaces electro-attract atmospheric dust immediately after the final wipe.

US Wipes Profitability

Andrew Battista, Consumer Products Director for RISI (USA) summarised the US Wipes and raw materials scene for 2005:

• Wipes demand tonnage grew (after a 2-3 year lull) by 2.3% (7-8% increase in value). By 2008 the US market should consume 475,000 tonnes, worth $1.8bn
• Imports and exports are in balance and there is no real threat of increasing imports. Imports will remain at ~£15million per year.
• Costs will be controlled by reducing weights from about 10.5 to 9.8 gms/wipe. (2004-8)
• Retail value would rise from about 8.8 c/wipe to above 9, the exact prediction being obscured for anti-trust reasons.
• NBSK pulp climbed to $725/tonne by June 2006, when global market pulp production was running at around 95% of capacity.
• Polyester price increased by 20% and polyester/cotton materials reached the highest prices for a decade – 52c/lb.
• US polyester staple demand was about 1.1 million tonnes and rising slowly.
• Chinese polyester production has grown from 12% to 40% of global demand over the last 5 years. (Imports are holding down PES prices despite the increase in oil price.)
• At 72 c/lb, PP price was double that in 2002.
• Pressure on wipes producers margins should wane as and when (and if?) oil prices fall.

Microbiological Quality Management

Wolfgang Siegert of Schülke and Mayr GmbH ( Germany ) pointed out that all wet-wipes needed some preservative to prevent spoiling on storage. (This was a re-presentation of his Barcelona 2004 speech, as is the summary below)

For baby and cosmetic wipes these preservatives would have to comply with the Cosmetic Regulations, and here products from their Euxyl® range can be used. Raw materials should be checked for microbes, and water, the main ingredient was often a problem:

• Water should contain no more than 100 colony forming units/ml.
• Ion exchangers are a source of microbial contamination
• Unpreserved water over 3 hours old must be assumed to be contaminated.

Random checks on nonwovens are essential. Manufacturers QC checks on contamination are rarely valid or good enough by the time the nonwovens are used.

For the lotion, the key questions relate to the stability of the concentrate, and the level of antimicrobial protection remaining when diluted to use-level. Once applied to the nonwoven, is it even? Does it protect the nonwoven adequately? Uniform spray application to the unfolded nonwoven is essential: chromatographic effects can cause separation of ingredients if the nonwoven is allowed to soak up the lotion from a reservoir, and dip application can result in the nonwoven taking up some chemicals more rapidly than others.

Technical wipes come under the Biocidal Products Regulations and here Parmetol(R) A28 has proved the most suitable preservative for most formulations.

Wet toilet tissue has proved to be the most risky for allergic skin reactions. Here an increase in pH caused by nonwovens, especially air-laids can cause problems with the recommended Euxyl® K702 which is based on phenoxyethanol, benzoic acid and dehydroacetic acid. (Only the free acids are preservatives and these are mainly undissociated only when pH is held below 5).

Paint Shop Wipes

Bart van Dongen of PGI Nonwovens (Netherlands) said car producers wanted paintshop wipes with good tensiles, low lint, solvent resistance, zero residues, a total absence of silicones, easy-glide, good dust pick-up and a QC system giving traceability. Silicones were the main cause of craters or fisheyes in the finished paint surface, so employees, both of the car paint-shop and the wipes manufacturing were prohibited from wearing nail-polish, hair-gel, skin creams or clothes washed with fabric softners. Growth was expected in India and China where car production would increase from 6 to 10.5 million cars per year by 2010. However increasing use of robotics would reduce the need for wipes.

3-D Nonwovens for Wipes?

Dr Steve Russell of Leeds University Nonwovens Research Group (UK) updated the work on the hydroentanglement analogue of the Napco “3D needlefelt” technology (See TechTextil Summary – April 2003, and INTC Summary Sept 2003). At Leeds , water jets are used to bond two pre-bonded webs together either side of spacers, which, if tubular, could simultaneously be used to fill the spaces with powders. He thought the powder could be a superabsorbent if it were possible to dry the web in the space between the last HE zone and the end of the spacers.

Since 2003 work had been carried out using millimetre or sub-millimeter wire spacers between the webs to create a corrugated surface after hydroentanglement. The corrugated surface could be made from different fibres to the back and wipes with novel characteristics could result. Maybe these small cavities could be filled with lotions or creams and maybe they could be engineered from different webs to deliver the cream through one face only. Asked if the filled corrugations would survive the pressures in a converting machine, Dr Russell pointed out that fabrics had only been made on a very small scale in the laboratory. The project had applications in wound care, but he thought some of the principles maybe adaptable to the wipes market.

Wipes Packaging Workshop

Andrew Streeter of CPS International (UK) compared global FMCG packaging trends with current wet-wipe packaging and tried to identify how the latter would have to evolve. FMCG packaging is changing from Production-driven to Consumer-driven as the producers discover that higher quality differentiated packaging building on a brand identity with unique colours and shapes can increase sales. Brands need to “shout from the shelves”, and pack shape can play a big part, especially if the shape has real functions that make the product easier to use as well as easier to identify.

Problems arising from the popular wipes flow-packs were listed as follows:

• On supermarket shelves, only graphic design differentiated the packs whereas many other products now used pack shape as part of the brand identity.
• The pack format had changed little over the last 10 years.
• They're hard to open and require dexterity to extract the wipe.
• Often deliver multiple wipes by mistake.
• Any attempt to replace surplus wipes is very unhygienic, but commonly done.
• Wipes can dry out quickly once the pack is opened.
• Reclosure is difficult.

On the plus side, flow-packs were minimalistic and hence better for disposal. They allow great flexibility to the converter by allowing the same machinery to handle different wipe sizes and counts, and they are of course very cheap.

For the future, Mr Streeter felt the wipes industry had to accept that on-pack graphics don't differentiate brands in the longer run. Distinctive colours and shapes were essential. In fact the pack features proven to encourage consumers to pick up a product as they pass down the supermarket aisle were:

• Colour
• Shape
• Typography and branding
• On-pack features
• Value for Money
• “Persona”

Once the product had been bought, the on-pack features became more important to allow the consumer to “engage in use” and become “friends” with the product thereby encouraging repurchase. So, in addition to failing in “shouting from the shelves” wet-wipe flow-packs, failed to deliver a rewarding experience in use.

What could be done? Clearly the more expensive rigid packaging gave more scope than flow-packs for on-shelf differentiation. Maybe if they were made from moulded pulp with a film coat on the inside, some of the environmental concerns would be met. They should certainly become easier to open with one hand, and here the new Freedent chewing-gum dispenser was used to illustrate a possible approach. (A new Huggies® wipe pack used a rotating closure which could indeed be operated with one hand but here the overall presentation was thought to be “boring”!). Ideally any special shaping should have a real function – i.e. the design should be multi-functional.

If rigid packs really were unacceptable, then the newer flexible packs with welded sides now being used for confectionery could be adapted for wipes and allow vertical rather than horizontal display on the shelves.

In conclusion, wipes brands:

• are not exploiting the advantages to be gained from modern packaging.
• are at the cross-roads, needing to change but nervous about spending more for distinctive packs.
• must grow into distinctive families.
• must move to special-shaped, easy-open, one-trip packs which are multifunctional, while meeting any developing environmental concerns.

(This Workshop had 32 attendees)

Calvin Woodings - 11 th July 2006

Link to Photos

EDANA Symposium – Vienna – 7/8 th June 2006

Introduction

Some 250 delegates from the nonwovens and related industries gathered in Vienna to attend EDANA's 2006 International Symposium on 7th – 8th June.

The Symposium, one of seven EDANA events in 2006, featured an interesting mix of high-level and diverse presentations covering nonwovens business, market and technology trends and innovations.

The various papers demonstrated many of the key strengths of the nonwovens industry – a focus on innovation, successful partnerships within its supply chain and the exploration of new opportunities, whether in new geographical markets, new product developments, or the application of advanced hybrid technologies.

The uplifting cocktail party, arranged with EDANA's now trademark style in the foyer of the Vienna Fine Arts Museum , included a guided tour of some of the major works in this beautiful building.

Keynote - Emerging Markets

Nenad Pacek, Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit's Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) Division observed that CEEMEA, with 7.7% of global GDP was now bigger than China (4.2%) and India (1.5%) combined, and while small compared with the USA and Western Europe (29% each) was clearly the region most worthy of corporate investment attention. Furthermore it was more predictable (politically) than many other emerging markets.

Within CEEMEA, Russia was the top priority for expansion with sales growth higher than China . Its economic fundamentals were stronger than ever and looking sustainable. It should prove the fastest-growing market in the world for the average multinational corporation: 94% of companies in Russia were already showing double-digit growth. After Russia , Turkey was the second most important market for international companies, 40% of them showing double-digit growth. Capital investment here was rising at 28% per year and while Turkey is exposed to more currency volatility and temporary setbacks than Russia , the risks are diminishing. After Turkey , the Middle East and North Africa was the third most important region. Here, regional oil revenues were running at 5 times the 1998 level and with oil expected to remain above $55/barrel the best growth will be in Saudi, Algeria , Qatar , UAE, Libya and the Sudan . The risks are obvious: high oil price reduces incentives for structural reform and if the oil boom ends the economies in this area are likely to collapse as they did at the end of the 1970's. US Companies in particular are nervous about investing in the region.

Within Central Europe , Mr Pacek saw sales growth accelerating in the Czech Republic , Slovakia , Poland and Slovenia , but slowing in Serbia , Croatia , Romania and Bulgaria . The Baltic States and Albania were stable at very good levels, and a devaluation of the forint was expected in Hungary .

He felt the continuing obsession with China coupled with the multiple corporate mistakes made in emerging markets would lead to problems for the developed economies. The mistakes were as follows:

• Short-termism at board level.

• Lack of board level commitment to developing business in emerging markets.

• “We'll give you more resources when you prove there's more business” – Catch 22.

• Wrong corporate structures for the regions.

• Assumption of market leadership as of right.

• Lack of local presence – working mainly through distributors.

• Centralised decision making (no local office).

• Over-reacting to economic setbacks.

• Judging results by Western standards (Quarterly Profit Forecasting etc doesn't work).

• Aversion to risk taking. (Need to take risks and monitor them).

Asked where India fitted into the EIU's global picture, Mr Pacek said the Subcontinent is now central to their current strategy studies. Pakistan and Bangladesh are not a major priority other than as a possible source of low-cost labour-intensive manufacturing. Profitability of investments in China is improving, but there are still issues with intellectual property and counterfeiting. Domestic competition is now very fierce, but Western nonwoven machinery producers are thought still to be making good profits.

Cost Pressures

Barry Davies, Director of Fibers for CMAI Europe used the Chemical Markets Associates Inc cost model to investigate the impact of raw material price changes on the costs of the various nonwoven processes:

• In 2005 EU melt-spun PP was the cheapest product at ~$1300/ton. Melt spun PET was ~$1500/ton, and carded PET ~$2300/ton, the increase over melt-spun being labour, binder and high drying costs.

• Chinese melt-spun PP was cheaper mainly due to labour costs being about one third of the EU level. (Power costs were higher due to the need for more costly uninterruptible sources for spun-melt.) However the cheapest spunbond PP (~$1200/tonne) was found in the Middle East where the raw material, labour and power costs were all lower than the EU.

• For carded polyester, China was more expensive than the EU due to the high power costs, and once again the Middle East was significantly cheaper at ~$2000/ton.

• However China has 3 million tonnes of surplus polyester staple fiber capacity and its polymer production is only operating at 32% of capacity.

• Propylene is currently more costly than terephthalic acid or mono ethylene glycol so PP and PET polymers will cost about the same for the next 2-3 years.

• Coverstock, carpet backing, geotextiles and interlinings could switch from PP to PET to benefit from the current differential.

• In 2009 as new capacities come on stream, PP is expected to regain its advantage.

• As the PP price reduces again, the cost of the meltspun PP nonwovens in EU will fall to ~$1100/ton and the relative advantages of production in China or the Middle East will diminish.

• By analogy with the Chinese production of plastic bags (exports increased from 200,000 tonnes in 1996 tonnes to over 1 million tonnes by 2006) increasing amounts of Chinese PP spunbond will be exported.

Overall, the Middle East emerged as the most attractive region to site nonwovens production plants.

In response to the inevitable question about future oil price, Mr Davies guessed current prices would allow new sources to come on stream and were therefore unsustainable. $40-$50/barrel would be the level to plan for in future.

Polypropylene Future

Marc van der Elst, General Manager PP for Total Petrochemicals Research ( Belgium ) pointed out that proven conventional oil reserves at the end of 2004 amounted to 40 years supply at 2004 consumption levels. 67 years supply of gas remained on the same basis. Unfortunately the main reserves were in risky regions, OPEC having little spare capacity at current prices. With regard to propylene:

• Growth in demand will exceed that of gasoline and ethylene.

• There will be no new crackers in Western Europe or North America, and combined with propylene shortages in Asia , the supply will be tight through 2008.

• In 2009-10, major new “on-purpose” (as opposed to by-product) propylene production with come on stream in the Middle East to alleviate the situation.

• 5 major producers (Basell, Borealis, Ineos, Total and Sabic) make 82% of the world supply.

• World PP demand was 42.3 million tonnes in 2006 and demand growth is expected to remain at about 5% per year.

• About 29% of total polypropylene is converted into fiber.

• Polyethylene production is now moving to the Middle East .

Asked about the viability of bio-based plastics, Mr van der Elst thought they may prove to be an alternative to oil-based products if oil stayed above about $60/barrel. However he thought using corn as a feedstock may not be sustainable if good quality water becomes any scarcer.

Asia Pacific Outlook

Rory Holmes, President of Inda (USA) provided an update of world nonwovens market data and estimates from Inda's 2004 report on nonwovens in the Asia-Pacific region:

• Annual Global Growth will continue at 7.3% allowing nonwoven output to reach ~7million tonnes/year in 2010 c.f 4.8 million tonnes in 2005. Square metreage will grow at 8.3% reflecting the general move to lighter fabrics in hygiene.

• By 2010, Asia Pacific will have the largest share of production (>2.1 million tonnes, followed by EU (~1.8 million tonnes) and USA (~1.5 million tonnes). China alone will account for ~1.2 million tonnes of the AP figure.

• Between 1994 and 2004, Asia Pacific tonnage rose at ~8.5% per year to 1.4 million tonnes and is expected to reach 2.1 million tonnes by 2009.

• China 's nonwoven output was 650,000 tonnes in 2004, double that of Japan , and is expected to reach 1.1 million tonnes by 2009. By then Japan (350,000 tonnes), Taiwan and Korea (180,000 tonnes each) and other Asia-Pacific countries (300,000 tonnes) would be small in comparison.

• Carded nonwovens excluding fibrefill and stitchbond accounted for 59% of the nonwovens produced in the region in 2004, but this share will decrease to 49% by 2009

• Spunmelt nonwovens had a 36% share and had grown fastest (15%/year) to reach 500,000 tonnes in 2004. 12%/year growth was predicted through 2009. By then 82% of all spunmelt would be PP-based.

• Needlepunching is the main bonding system (404,000 tonnes in 2004) and will rise to 540,000 tonnes in 2009. China alone will make 245,000 tonnes of needlefelt in 2009.

• Hydroentanglement had been the fastest growing bonding system (28%/year to reach 98,000 tonnes in 2004). Ongoing growth at 18% year is expected to enable spunlace to reach 128,000 tonnes by 2009.

• Thermal and chemical bonding is declining and will fall further (from 314,000 tonnes in 2004) to be overtaken by spunlace ~2010.

• Air-laid production (39,000 tonnes in 2004) is expected to triple by 2009, mainly due to wipes, femcare and incontinence growth.

• PP staple is expected to reach 432,000 tonnes in 2009, but polyester staple will grow faster to reach 307,000 tonnes.

• Rayon usage in nonwovens is growing also, reaching 94,000 tonnes in 2004 and 118,000 tonnes by 2009.

New Absorbent Rayons

Josef Schmidtbauer, Director of Innovation for Nonwovens at Lenzing AG ( Austria ) reviewed the absorbency of rayon fibres using tests appropriate to the evaluation of hygienic disposables, with special emphasis on demonstrating the superiority of cellulosics over synthetics. Several fibers now under development were mentioned in passing. Conclusions were as follows:

• The absorbency of fibrous masses depends on the absorbtion of fluid into the fiber (Water Retention Value or WRV) and the ability of the mass to retain fluid in the spaces between fibres (Water holding capacity or WHC)

• WRV – centrifuge method – depends on the fibres molecular structure and the presence of any voids in the structure. Numerically, WRV is predicted by the reciprocal of the product of cellulosic fiber crystallinity and the square of its molecular orientation. 90% is a typical WRV for viscose, 60% is typical for lyocell while the synthetics tend to be less than 5%.

• Viscose has small voids in the core while lyocell has a more uniform dispersion of much smaller voids.

• Water holding capacity (WHC, otherwise known as Total Free Absorbency) depends on the structure of the fibrous mass and is typically measured on carded webs by methods standardised in the Pharmacopoeias. Values of 21 g/g for viscose and lyocell and 27 g/gm for cotton were presented.

• WRV can be increased by mixing other absorbent polymers into the spinning dope:

• Alginate Alloy (“Hydrofil A” fiber – 140% WRV)

• Guar Alloy (“Hydrofil G” – 120% WRV)

• Carboxymethyl cellulose Alloy (“Viscosorb” – 125% WRV)

• Superabsorbent Alloy (“Lyocell/SAP” – 155% WRV)

• WHC was hardly affected by these additions but the use of cellulose carbamate (“Hydrofil C” fiber) increased WHC to 32% while leaving the WRV the same. Here the carbamate regenerates to cellulose in spinning but the resulting fiber is very highly crimped – this being the structural feature which, after carding, increases WHC.

• “Visconova” (WHC = 26.5%) is another improved absorbency fiber where the viscose process is adjusted to maximise fiber crimp.

• Modifying the cross-sectional shape of rayon is another way of substantially altering absorbency but the changes to WRV and WHC are minor for the trilobal or flat section products currently on offer. Here the benefits appear in the Syngina test which mimics the absorbency of a tampon, giving values of 12 g/plug for cotton and 15 g/plug for viscose. In this test all the development fibers mentioned above give improved results, the most notable being:

• “Hydrofil A” (Alginate alloy) and “Viscosorb” (CMC alloy) both give 20 g/plug.

• “Lyocell/SAP” alloy gives 17 g/plug.

• The all-cellulose trilobal “Viscostar” and the more triangular shaped “Delta” fibers give 17.5 and 18 g/plug respectively.

• For wiping products the Demand Absorbency test is used to assess water uptake. In this test 50gsm viscose spunlaced nonwoven typically gives ~7 g/g water uptake compared with less than 2 g/g for synthetics. “Lyocell/SAP” gave 8 g/g.

• Demand Absorbency had also been used to evaluate blends of viscose and “Viscostar” (trilobal viscose) in 100gsm needlefelts. Moving from 100% viscose to 100% “Viscostar” increase the DA from 13.5% to 18%, with a value of 17.5% being possible for a 50/50 blend.

Asked how WRV and WHC were related, Mr Schmidtbauer explained that they were independent variables. How would the “Lyocell/SAP” fiber be dried after hydroentanglement? With difficulty: the fiber had yet to be commercialised.

EU Industrial Wipes Market

Sylvain d'Incau of DuPont ( Switzerland ) observed that the slow down in the hygiene market was leading consumer wipes producers to turn their attention to the industrial market, dumping fabrics designed for consumer use at very low prices. He was at pains to point out that the industrial wipes market was less attractive than might be imagined:

• Industrial wipes is a highly fragmented market with millions of end-users served by thousands of distributors.

• Industrial wipes are no more profitable than consumer wipes.

• The market size is difficult to measure but is probably between €1 and €3 billion at end-user level.

• Only 20% of this is nonwoven, so the nonwoven wipes market would be between €200 and €600 million or 20,000 - 50,000 tonnes.

• 70% of the nonwoven wipes come from very large backwards-integrated producers so the opportunity for roll-good suppliers is limited.

• In fact Dupont estimate the opportunity for roll-goods to be between 6000 and 15000 tpy, or about the output of one modern spunlace line.

• Average annual growth is between 4 and 5% per year, but the contamination control segment (~1000 tonnes/year) shows 8-10% while the basic wipes show 1-2% per year growth.

For future opportunities the nonwovens industry must challenge the dominance of textile rental towels by highlighting their hidden costs and the risk of contamination due to imperfect laundering. Industrial wet-wipes are taking off, growing 4-5 times faster than dry wipes, and now account for about 5-10% of the total nonwoven volume in industrials. Microfiber spunlaced nonwovens should grow at the expense of the costly woven and knitted microfiber wipes.

Asked what the biggest threat was, Mr d'Incau cited increasing raw material costs which are impacting the viability of the whole nonwovens industry. He also thought the industrial nonwovens industry was a threat to itself as the competitive dynamics were causing downward pressure on prices.

Opportunities for Biodegradable Nonwovens

Frederic Noelle, R&D Director of Rieter Perfojet SA (France) said the combination of biodegradable fibres from sustainable polymers at competitive cost with efficient hydroentanglement bonding allowed the production of hygienic nonwovens better suited to emerging European waste management strategy. Viscose and lyocell were now comparable in price to PP and PET, and HE nonwovens made from them were cheaper than the equivalent synthetic nonwovens. These nonwovens were easily and rapidly biodegraded, both aerobically (landfill or compost) and anaerobically (sewage treatment or landfill). If stronger products were required, polylactic acid (PLA) was now the most competitive of the synthetic biodegradables, the polymer price having declined to meet the rising cost of polyester resins. PLA could be spunlaid and hydroentangled and the more durable fabrics, whilst not truly biodegradable, could be hydrolysed and degraded in active composting where temperatures above 65 o C and humidities above 90% would destroy it in 60 days.

Wingformer Update

Alessandro Celli, Managing Director of Celli Nonwovens S.p.A ( Italy ) provided more information on the design of the new Wingformer air-lay head. Compared with the established systems from Neumag (M&J) and Danweb the most significant difference appeared to be

• The distribution of the pulp through a thin flexible screen rather like a paper machine forming wire, which travelled above and with the main conveyor and could be cleaned of any nits or undispersed pulp on the return run above the “headbox”. This guaranteed blockage-free running and presumably improved MD/CD ratios.

• The use of wing-like fiber distribution elements said to give uniquely uniform webs with very good MD/CD property ratios. These were attached to numerous independently driven rollers which spin in contact with the moving distribution screen and wipe the fibers through it.

The 50cm wide pilot former now installed at Rieter Perfojet allows air-laying onto a spunlaced web prior to further spunlacing and drying. Throughput exceeding those of the competitive systems is claimed, and the current maximum (650 kg/m/hr with treated pulp) is limited by hammermill throughput. Web profiles show weight variability below 2%, and most remarkably, this uniformity is maintained over air humidities ranging from 80% down to 30%. If confirmed on a production scale, this would allow the elimination of air conditioning with substantial savings in energy – estimated at €350,000 per year for a 3.6m wide machine.

Would the Wingformer work with synthetic fibers? Yes, but a new fiber opening system is needed to prove how well it could work. At present 6mm fibers have been processed, but the screen system can be made more open for longer fibers. The web onto which the pulp is laid must be very open in order to get the necessary air-flow.

Spunlaced spunlaid

Dr Ullrich Münstermann of Fleissner GmbH ( Germany ) put the maximum capacity of their Aquajet HE lines at 4.5 tonnes/hour for plain products and 3.2 tonnes/hour for structured products. Total annual production of HE fabrics was now running at 430,000 tonnes per year, but the combination of spunlaying with HE was expected to provide future growth. In particular, the SPS (Spunbond Pulp Spunbond) system could in future provide nonwovens of high quality, low cost and high profit for the wipes market. 48 gsm of woodpulp could be sandwiched between two 8 gsm layers of PP spunbond to give a highly absorbent fabric with good uniformity, strength, and a softness similar to an all-staple wipe. This had been made at speeds of 500 m/min in the Fleissner R&D centre, but offline processes would be possible. In this process coverstock spunbonds could be fed from an unwind stand to replace the card webs in an air-lace product.

Spunlaced-spunlaid could also replace needled and/or chemically bonded spunlaid products in geotextiles and roofing applications. Spunlacing would allow higher production speeds, higher strengths and savings of fiber and binder. It would also allow sea/island filaments to be split into microfibers. The novel characteristics of these new fabrics could also be expected to open up new durable markets.

Automotive Nonwovens

Tolga Görgün of Advansa GmbH reviewed the use of nonwovens in automotive construction and made the case for increased use of polyester. Averaged over all types and sizes of cars, about 30 kgs of textiles are used per car. Of this 20 kgs are nonwovens, and with 64 million cars being produced every year the market for nonwovens is about 1.3 million tonnes. The average annual growth rate is 5.8%. Approximately 55% of the fiber used is polyester, and the case for using more rests on its excellent economy (especially in China ), abrasion resistance, light fastness, thermoformability and anti-stain properties. 66% of the nonwovens used in cars are spunbonds, 27% needlepunched, and 6% spunlaced. 43% of the nonwovens are used in carpet-related applications, 23% in hood and trunk liners 17% in insulation and 6% in headliners. Asked how the consumer would benefit from increased use of polyester Mr Görgün said lower costs would be the main thing.

Fuel-Cell Nonwovens

In tomorrow's hydrogen economy, static solar-panel power stations will electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen, and these gases will be packaged and stored under pressure to be recombined in a stack of fuel cells to re-generate electricity at a high enough wattage to power a car or a home. Klaus-Dietmar Wagner of Freudenberg GmbH said 11,000 fuel cells were built in 2004, up from 1000 in 2000. Many of these still run on natural gas but as the fossil fuel runs out, fuel cells will become a major power source in the “hydrogen economy”; today's hybrid cars being seen as just a bridge to the use of fuel cells.

The most promising cells are the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) varieties which rely on membranes to transport protons, insulate anode from cathode and separate the gases between anode and cathode.

• The PEM's, which pass protons from the anode to the cathode, are fluorocarbon polymers with sulphonic acid side groups e.g. Nafion® (DuPont) or Flemion® (Asahi Glass KK). The thinner the membrane the better, so nonwovens are used to reinforce them.

• Gas Diffusion Membranes either side of the PEM are wet- or dry-laid carbon fiber products coated with fluorocarbons and designed to transport the hydrogen and oxygen to the electrodes, conduct the protons to the PEM and on to the cathode, and to channel the water away from the cathode as it forms.

• Filter membranes tend to be paper based, but nonwovens could be better.

Asked about binders, Dr Wagner said they could be used but had to be very pure. Hydrogen was of course explosive, but modern handling techniques avoided the hazard.

Nonwovens in Construction

David Avril of Don and Low (UK) described their development of breathable nonwovens for non-ventilated pitched roofs. Conventional roofing “felt” is impervious bitumen coated scrim or paper which is totally water and vapour proof. Roofs using it, around 80% of UK homes, have to be ventilated to prevent condensation and this ventilated area is the typical cold loft space. If the roofing felt could be both waterproof and vapour permeable, the loft space could be insulated at roof-level rather than floor-level and become another usable warm area.

The solution is to use an SMS or SFS nonwoven (where F is a microporous film) to achieve a moisture vapour transmission rate of at least 870 g/sq.metre/day. Additional requirements are:

• High water hold-out to cope with wind-driven rain, especially in the short time before the tile cladding is added.

• Adequate strength.

• Low noise in windy conditions.

• Resistant to “tenting” (i.e. permeability to liquid water when touched on the dry side).

• Stable properties for the lifetime of the building.

The new fabric – similar to the US housewrap nonwovens - will allow homes to be built with non-ventilated roofs and will reduce heat loss from the roof structure from 25% down to 4%. These big energy savings are the driving force for the development, and use of the fabrics is expected to take-off as architects begin to specify the new construction method.

Nonwovens in Apparel?

Steve Russell, Director of the Nonwovens Research Group at Leeds University (UK) reviewed the numerous attempts to break into the apparel market since the first paper dress craze captured the headlines in a sixties summer. He thought the trend to “Fast Fashion” increased the chances of nonwovens finding application in novel apparel items. Fashion clothing was increasingly short-life so durability and washability requirements were easing in this sector. Key properties were isotropy, formability and fit, generally achieved in textiles through the ability of woven or knitted fabrics to shear. Nonwovens, especially hydroentangled spunbonds made from elastic polymers, were looking increasingly capable of providing the comfort and wearability needs for fashion clothing, so the NRG is investigating how these fabrics can be finished and made-up into garments using novel techniques which better exploit the inherent properties of nonwovens. Part of the justification for the work arises from the decline in EU textiles as China moves ahead to produce over half the world's clothing in 2007.

Eastern European Hygiene

Krystyna Boryk-Jozefowicz, Vice Director of the Foreign Trade Dept. of Poland's TZMO SA replaced Yana Danailova of Ficosota Syntez Ltd at short notice and returned to her April 2005 Geneva theme arguing that Eastern Europe was just a state of mind. 15 years ago, being part of a centrally planned economy, the market did not exist. Now it was mature and there was no need for any further investment or interest from multinational Western companies. Globalisation and Communization were very similar, both leading to uniformity and limited choice for the consumer. She remained concerned that European Integration was leaving out Russia , Ukraine , Kazakhstan and Belarus , and continued to predict that these countries would form a new economic block of 205 million people because they would not accept “EU waiting list” status.

Link to Photos on Nonwovens Interactive

Notes from the EDANA Nonwoven Research Academy Roubaix 20-21/4/2006

Key Points

• Diffuse Coplanar Surface Barrier Discharge Plasma treatment allows faster, safer and cheaper activation of PP spunbonds. Permanent hydrophilicity is claimed from a 0.27 KWh/kg application on a 17gsm fabric. The treatment also allowed chitosan to be grafted onto the surface of the PP.
• Dissolving cellulose in ionic liquids allows the production of lyocell-like fibers, but the solvents tried so far are unlikely to yield cheaper fibers.
• Pore size distribution can be measured, albeit laboriously, with a scanning light microscope.
• Hydroentangled fabrics exhibit 2-3 times the dye uptake of equivalent woven or knitted products.
• The atomic force microscope has been adapted to measure the surface friction of PP fibers and hence the effects of spin finishes.

The first EDANA Nonwoven Research Academy was the conference component of last year's INDEX in Geneva . This second NRA was the first “stand-alone” meeting, the first to encourage student participation with a special registration fee of €25, and the first to feature EDANA grants to cover fees, travel and accommodation expenses for 11 selected MSc and PhD students of nonwovens.

Held in the lecture theatre of the Ecole Nationale Su p é rieure des Arts & Industries Textiles (ENSAIT) in Roubaix , France and with the majority of papers being given by Research Institutes, this conference was as academic as the organisers intended. From the delegate list, of the 135 people present, 36 had registered as students (21 from ENSAIT). With a few exceptions, companies (59 attendees) were represented by their R&D personnel, and the remainder were from the Research Institutes and Universities. As well as a full day of lectures, the programme included optional visits to the ENSAIT GEMTEX (Engineering and Textile Materials) laboratory, IFTH (Institute Francais Textile-Habillement) and CENT (Centre Européen des Nontissés). Summaries of the papers presented follow.

Novel approach to fibre recycling

Dr Andreas Bartl , Assistant Professor – Vienna University of Technology, Institute of Chemical Engineering (Austria) reviewed fiber production in 2004 and observed that cotton (26 million tonnes), depending where grown, required between 70 and 500 billion tonnes of water, between 6 and 19 million tonnes of oil, between 150,000 and 250,000 tonnes of pesticides and between 3.4 to 5.3 million tonnes of fertilizers for its supposedly eco-friendly production. Thermal energy recovery from its incineration was only 17 Mj/kg, less than that of the oil needed in its direct production and far less than the total oil requirement once that used to produce the pesticides and fertilizers was included. Recycling of such fiber was therefore urgently recommended. Sources of fibrous waste ranged from predictable fiber and textile production waste to the unpredictable output of carpet and tyre shredders via apparel waste with its unwanted contamination of buttons and zips.

In addition to ecological worries about cotton, legislation, e.g the vehicle end-of-life regulations and the need for economy drove the need for increased levels of fiber recycling so Dr Bartl and his colleagues had hit on the idea of using short fibers from shredders as viscosity modifiers. To test the idea they had started with well characterized 0.3 to 2 mm viscose fibers, typically 1.7dtex, guillotine cut by Casati ( Italy ). Sieving trials showed that sieving was incapable of separating the fibers into well defined lengths and diameters, but an optical image analyzer (Morfi – which works on suspensions of fibers in water) could separate a mixture into the component lengths. Next they took lyocell fiber ground up in an Alpine cutting mill, and fiber reclaimed from tyres, both ground and as-received, characterized them on the Morfi analyzer and investigated their influence on the viscosity of glycerol in 1% w/w suspensions. All trials showed increased viscosity and the ground fibers changed the flow behaviour from Newtonian to thixotropic. The unground tyre-derived fibers caused pseudoplastic flow.

Real applications for fibers obtained by grinding waste needled and spunlaced nonwovens are expected in reinforcing bitumen as used in asphalt, roofing and sealants and these are now being investigated. Lacquers, cements and adhesives could be other outlets for recycling such fibers.

A skeptical questioner wondered whether or not the project had industrial support – maybe from the paint industry. It didn't. Maybe the method would work for bituminous paints using tyre-derived fibers,

Ionic liquids for man-made cellulose fibres

Dr Thomas Röder , Project Manager – Lenzing AG, Pulp Research ( Austria ) surveyed the literature on ionic liquids for cellulose dissolution. Ionic liquids are salts that melt below 100C, the most valuable being those that are liquid at room temperature (RTIL's). RTIL's generally comprise a bulky and asymmetric organic cation e.g. 1-alkyl 3-methylimidazolium with anions ranging from simple halides to large organics, the larger ones tending to give lower melting points.

To replace NMMO in lyocell production the required solvent should:

• Melt below 20C and boil above 200C.
• Dissolve 15%+ of cellulose without excessive degradation.
• Allow cellulose to be reprecipitated in water.
• Be easy to recycle at high efficiencies.
• Be non-toxic and odourless.
• Yield cheaper fibers than lyocell.
• Yield better fibers than lyocell

The chlorides tend to be good cellulose solvents, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (BMIM-Cl) yielding a spinnable 10% solution at 100C and a 25% solution given pulses of microwave energy. Unfortunately the latter was extensively degraded and non-fiber-forming.

The WO 2006/0000197 A1 patent from TITK suggested the use of BMIM-Cl in a 10-45% solution in water to dissolve wet pulp (50% cellulose) to give a 16.5% cellulose (DP=530) solution when stabilized with sodium hydroxide and propyl gallate. This could be air-gap spun at ~50 m/min through ~100micron holes at ~110C into water. Fibers were stronger than lyocell with similar elongations, but the proposed solvent recovery system looked expensive.

Lenzing's work with the same solvent and with 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (AMIM-Cl) has used dry pulps and achieved similar fiber properties albeit from lower concentrations of cellulose in solution (11%). AMIM-Cl gave a slightly lower modulus fiber from solutions of up to 12% cellulose. Key areas for further work are:

• Optimisation of spinning parameters
• Investigation of degradation and the development of better stabilizers
• Developing a commercially viable recovery system
• Investigation of other RTIL systems

In response to questions, Dr Röder did not think either of the two RTIL's worked on to date would yield a cheaper fiber than lyocell. The solvents are very expensive and corrosive, and residues in effluent would have an aquatic toxicity equivalent to many other problem solvents.

Fire retardancy using intumescence

Sophie Duquesne , Lecturer – Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Lille ( France ) said intumescence arises when a carbon source (polyurethane) mixed with an acid (ammonium polyphosphate) and a blowing agent (melamine) is heated. The resultant foamed char provides a physical fire barrier. Intumescent mixtures can be applied by any of the usual coating systems, using masterbatches by extrusion, or in powder coating of bulky nonwovens.

A laboratory investigation of padding versus backcoating methods onto a PP nonwoven yielded the following observations:

• Padding allows fast development of the protective foam and delays fiber melting. However the fibers still ignite
• Back-coating is more effective but if the face is exposed the PP quickly melts and burns
• Extrusion of inherently flame retardant articles could be best but the technique now has to be confirmed on fibers.

Improved textile coating after nap-raising needling

Dr Barbara Schimanz , Project Leader – Saxon Textile Research Institute (STFI-Germany) has tried needling a stitchbonded nonwoven to create a hairy surface in order to increase the adhesion of any coating applied to that surface. Adhesion of the coating did improve by 15-20% but the needling operation almost halved the nonwoven's MD strength, presumably as a result of breaking the stitching yarns. CD strengths were however more than doubled. Less aggressive ways of improving adhesion were not discussed.

Penetration and spreading of liquids in layered nonwovens

Dr Ningtao Mao , Senior Research Fellow – Nonwovens Research Group, Centre for Technical Textiles, University of Leeds ( United Kingdom ) pointed out that while liquid absorbtion and penetration in homogeneous single layer materials is well understood, the performance of multilayer composites is complicated by the effects of the interface between layers. This interface region is now being studied theoretically and practically at Leeds University , but these first attempts at developing a mathematical model to predict composite absorbency behaviour have concluded that “work is required to elucidate the structure of this region”. Difficult questions about fluid flow against gravity in diaper cores and the absorbency of non-Newtonian fluids such as menses were probably meant as helpful indications of a possible future direction.

Structuring of spunlaced nonwovens

Dipl.-Chem Wolfgang Schilde , Department Manager – Saxon Textile Research Institute (STFI) ( Germany ) has been using their state-of-the-art pilot line with Fleissner Aquajet to investigate creating 3-D effects (dimples) in spunlace nonwovens. After basic experimentation to optimize the process, factors affecting the thickness of a 3-D structure were explored, line speed proving the most important for a given fibre. At 25 m/min well defined dimples were obtained. Measurements of heat insulation properties led to the suggestion that 3-D nonwovens made from FR fibers could be used in the insulation layer of fire-brigade clothing where the extra thickness would allow savings of 30-50% in weight of fiber used.

An expert system for needlepunched geotextiles

Dr Amit Rawal , Post-doctoral Researcher – CSIR, Materials Science and Manufacturing ( South Africa ) has measured the effects of feed-rate, stroke frequency and depth of needle penetration on the properties of needlepunched geotextiles.

• Increasing needle penetration increases MD fiber orientation
• Increasing stroke rate reduces MD fiber orientation
• Permeability of geotextiles is reduced by increases in both needle penetration and stroke frequency
• Lower feed rates increase the permeability

The “expert system” developed from the mathematical model allows the design of geotextiles with specific properties in a cost effective manner.

In response to questions, fiber orientation had been measured by recording the angles of surface fibers relative to MD. Maybe there should be a factor in the model for fiber properties, and maybe the model should now be verified experimentally.

Nonwoven pore size distribution from optical profiling

Dr Philippe Vroman , Associate Professor – Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Industries Textiles (ENSAIT) (France) has used white-light interferometry with a CCD microscope stepping at 1 micron intervals in the X and Y directions and with 1 nanometer resolution in the Z direction to build up multicoloured images of a nonwoven fabric. This non-contact technique is commonly used for characterizing surfaces in the metallurgical, optical and the paper industries. Here, vertical stepping allows the nonwoven to be characterized in several slices through the thickness, each slice being coloured differently. After acquiring the image it needs several stages of processing prior to pore size distribution measurement, “thresholding” – removing background fibers, and “binarisation” – to separate fibers from pores being most important. Pore sizes are then measured one by one from the final image and their distribution, mean, median and maximum sizes are calculated. Correlations between the measured values and hydraulic properties and filtration performance appear to be good. However the method only works well on thin materials, is very time consuming – around 2 days for a result on a few square millimeters - and is only suitable for use in a research environment. On the plus side, the same equipment can be used to measure thickness (non contact), fiber orientation, cloudiness, cover factors, roughness and the embossing ratio of a calendared product.

Could a flat-bed scanner be used to get faster results? Yes, but it would miss the 3-D information which allows the effects of the next layer of fibers to be accounted for. Can surface roughness be correlated with hand-feel? They are working on this. Could the method be made to work on-line? Yes, with different sensors, but a confidentiality agreement prevents information sharing here.

Nonwovens as potential vibration dampers

Dr Elaheh Ghassemieh , Lecturer – Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) has measured the vibration damping properties of nonwovens by bonding them to a magnetically-excited cantilever beam in the ASTM E-756-98 standard test. For fiber-glass nonwovens, damping ratio increased linearly with basis weight, the rate of increase increasing with the amplitude of the vibration. If the glass nonwovens were reinforced by stitchbonding, the damping ratios were further increased, but only if the reinforcement aligned with the beam direction. Aramid nonwovens proved less efficient dampers than glass, but had much greater increases in damping with amplitude. Had Dr Ghassemieh studied polyester nonwovens? Yes, but her applications were in aerospace where high modulus and resistance to corrosion were required.

Dyeing performance of hydroentangled fabrics

Andrew D. Hewitt , Postgraduate Researcher – Nonwovens Research Group, Centre for Technical Textiles, University of Leeds ( United Kingdom ) has shown that in standardized conventional textile dyeing operations, hydroentangled nonwovens exhibit 2-3 times the dye-uptake of knitted or woven textiles made of the same fibers at the same basis weight. This applies to cotton (direct dyes) and polyester and PLA (disperse dyes). Furthermore the HE fabrics exhibited increased depth of shade and higher wash-fastness. The effects were thought to be due to the lower density and even fiber distribution in the nonwoven compared with the highly densified yarn structures in the conventional textiles. However varying the bonding pressure in HE to make denser fabrics (70 bar up to 190 bar, which reduced the fabric thickness from 1.4 to 1.1 mm) had no effect on the dyeing performance. If dyeing conditions were altered for the HE fabrics to restrict dye-uptake to the levels obtained on wovens and knits, then savings in dye, energy and wastewater treatments would be obtained, and the environmental impact of the dyeing process could be reduced.

Questioners were concerned that the dyed HE fabric lightfastness would be inferior and doubted the ability of HE fabrics to survive commercial dyeing operations. Lightfastness remained to be measured. Dimensional stability of the HE fabrics had been good in laboratory dyeing.

Plasma surface modification

Kenth Johansson , Area Manager Surface Modification – YKI, Institute for Surface Chemistry (Sweden) said the disadvantages of conventional plasma treatment included the need for long treatment times, the costly Helium gas and the short life of the electrodes. A new method called Diffuse Coplanar Surface Barrier Discharge Plasma treatment overcame these problems by:

• By using 10x the usual power density (100 W/cm 3 ), speeds can be increased
• By alternating the positive and negative electodes and embedding them in a single ceramic plate (treatment from one-side only). This arrangement created a “waste-free” localized plasma field with high homogeneity.
• Using nitrogen or carbon dioxide gases along with the reactive gases instead of helium.

This process could activate the surface of a 17 gsm PP spunbond using only 0.15 KWh/kg and could create a permanently hydrophilic surface with 0.27 KWh/kg. The embedding of the electrodes in a ceramic plate yields a safe and robust system which incidentally allows the nonwovens to be pressed and even laminated against the plate.

After plasma activation chitosan could be grafted onto the surface of PP simply by dipping the fabric in a chitosan solution.

In what was really a second paper on a different subject, Dr Johansson described the use of an atomic force microscope to measure the frictional properties of polypropylene fibers with and without spin-finishes. Here a short length of one fiber was glued to the cantilever of the AFM and this was “scanned” across another single fiber. Plots of frictional response against load and distance were obtained. These showed that spin-finishes (alkyl polyether ethoxylates) tend to migrate to the crossover point of the two fibers, reduce the static friction by a factor of 3 and prevent viscoelastic deformation of the fibers.

Separation of Tencel fibres during airlaying

Dr Mohammad Osman , Researcher - Nonwovens Research Group, University of Leeds ( United Kingdom ) has used high speed photography to show that the main fiber-chip opening in an air-lay head (M&J-Type) occurs by collision of the rotor blades with chips on the screen. Effects of fiber morphology, pre-opening, fiber finish, fiber crimp and cutting methods have been studied but, maybe for commercial reasons, will not be reported for some time.

Calvin Woodings

26/4/2006

ENSAIT Founded in 1889, the ENSAIT trains 47% of French textile engineers to post-graduate level. Research at ENSAIT: The GEMTEX (Laboratory of engineering and textile materials) is a university laboratory. It is structured around two main research areas, namely processing and chemistry of materials and composites, (which include processing of textile materials and properties) and automation and textile logistics, (dealing with modelling, simulation and control of textile processes as well as supply chain management).

IFTH performs Applied Research and Development actions that are intended to make technology progress and to improve production techniques. The Institute is also responsible for the Bureau de Normalisation des Industries Textile-Habillement - BNITH (Textile-Apparel Industry Standardisation Office). It participates actively in several French, European and international standardisation commissions. Within the framework of training and consulting actions, IFTH provides tools in decision making to companies such as software and possibilities of interactive exchanges: technological watch clubs, thematic days, distribution of useful information, etc....

CENT is the European Centre for Nonwovens, which is dedicated to innovation in the nonwovens sector. The Centre offers well equipped, flexible facilities and laboratories, covering various technologies. It provides a wide range of scientific and technical capabilities covering different nonwovens areas and processes.

Edana 2006 Nonwovens Research Academy - Lille

The first EDANA Nonwoven Research Academy was the conference component of last year’s INDEX in Geneva . This second NRA was the first “stand-alone” meeting, the first to encourage student participation with a special registration fee of €25, and the first to feature EDANA grants to cover fees, travel and accommodation expenses for 11 selected MSc and PhD students of nonwovens.

Wolfgang Schilde and Barbara Schimanz of Germany's Saxon Textile Research Institute with Nigtao Mao of Leeds Nonwovens Research Group

Share of sales of products launched in the last 5 years versus R&D spend as a percent of sales from EDANA innovation management study 2005. The nonwovens industry achieves average innovation from below average expenditure.

Dr Elaheh Ghassemieh, Lecturer – Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) has measured the vibration damping properties of nonwovens by bonding them to a magnetically-excited cantilever beam in the ASTM E-756-98 standard test.

Edana sponsored students at the 2006 Nonwovens Research Academy conference in Lille.
Andrew Hewitt comments: "...the tall guy who is second from the left on the back row is me! - Andrew Hewitt. To the right of me is Elaine Durham (third from left on back row), and the guy wearing the v-necked jumper and blue T-shirt (third from the left on the middle row) is Baljeet Dhillon. We're all PhD students in the Nonwovens Research Group, Leeds University, UK. The guy third from the left on the front row is Saravanan Palaniappan, who was an Masters student with us at the time."
Can anyone else put more names to the faces - if so please use "comments" below.

EDANA NRA 2006 More Photos