Defining the Future on Innovation

Developing fibres made from

renewable resources

Creating

biodegradable fibres

that meet user requirements in terms of strength, softness and cost.

Defining the Future

Although the nonwovens industry has been around for over 50 years, the full-scale industrialisation of nonwovens manufacturing didn’t take off until the early 1980s. Since then, the nonwovens industry has been driven by a passion for innovation, leveraging the latest technologies to constantly advance the state-of-the-art. This has resulted in the development of a wide range of web forming and web consolidation technologies.

Innovative technologies like these have enabled a new generation of lighter yet highly functional nonwovens. These new nonwovens lead to significant savings in raw materials. For example, thanks to their use of increasingly lighter nonwovens, the weight of disposable diapers has been reduced by more than 50% in just 30 years.

New Material Solutions

But by no means is innovation confined to how nonwovens are manufactured – it also applies to the material itself. In fact, the nonwovens industry is constantly developing innovative new material solutions:

• Modifying a material’s molecular chains, polymer engineers are creating stronger, or lighter, or more bulky fibre.
• Spinning multi-component fibres to combine properties that cannot be found in mono-material.
• Creating hollow fibres and fibres with lobular cross-sections, to reduce a fibre’s weight or improve nonwoven performance.
• Developing fibres made from renewable resources and improving the ability of such renewable materials to be spun into fibres.
• Creating biodegradable nonwovens that meet user requirements in terms of strength, softness and cost.

Opening the Door to New Opportunities

This commitment to innovation – both in terms of technology and materials – has opened the door to new opportunities and new or improved applications, including:

• Acoustic materials for sound insulation in vehicles
• Medical gowns and drapes with optimal barrier properties
• Wound dressings and protein-based nonwovens as wound fillers
• Geosynthetics used to stabilise terrain in civil engineering projects
• Advanced filtration media to coop with increasing demand for clean air
• The design of such lightweight structures as drone wings

Furthermore, these new nonwovens can be used in combination with other materials. For instance, their use increases the strength and stability of composite materials, which are regularly employed by the home and building industry.

Anything is Possible

Nonwovens also play an important role in innovative applications that will define our future, such as battery separators used in the design of high capacity batteries in, for example, electrical vehicles.

With nonwovens, anything is possible. So let your imagination run wild and join us as we define the future.