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Many Shapes And Forms



no matter how you define it, composite technology is allowing nonwovens to penetrate new markets.



By Karen Bitz McIntyre
Editor




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What are composites? The answer really depends on whom you ask. Some describe them as the marriage of two different technologies in one process line—as is the case with your standard multi-beam spunmelt line—while others rely on a post-production processing step to develop a substrate with multiple capabilities. Other composites contain multiple substrates, made on entirely different lines. These substrates could be different types of nonwovens or combine a nonwoven with another type of fabric like a film or a woven. Whatever the means, the combination of multiple technologies is allowing nonwovens to penetrate areas once unheard of while helping users of nonwovens simplify their businesses.

One example of new market area being penetrated through composites is wall coverings. Nonwovens producer Ahlstrom has been using multilayer wetlaid technology to create wall coverings with ease of pasting and removal, printing and converting and visual properties. These enable countless design opportunities. “In this business, our technology platform is additionally enriched by the surface coating technologies deriving from our specialty papers business,” said company spokesman Marco Martinez.

Ahlstrom—and fellow nonwovens producer Hollingsworth & Vose—has been reporting strong sales of composite-based wall coverings—a market long dominated by paper—for the past several years. Other areas of success in composite technology have included hygiene, medical, construction, wipes and filtration—to name a few. In fact, nearly every market out there has been relying more on higher tech composite technology as customers are demanding more sophisticated products to differentiate themselves.

“In today’s world, the requirements of different industries are too complicated and sophisticated that no one nonwovens technology alone is capable of meeting them,” said Serkan Gogus, commercial director of Turkish roll goods producer Mogul. “This has created a need for composites, or the marriage of different nonwovens technology, which is an important step.”

In wipes, Mogul is selling a new composite technology, combining spunbond, airlaid and spunlaced nonwovens. Heavily invested in spunmelt and meltblown technologies, Mogul has turned to alternative technologies to help diversify itself and wipes is one of the key growth areas it is pursuing, according to Mr. Gogus. Mogul’s Asterion pulp-based nonwovens are based on proprietary technology developed with a technical consulting firm. Like Kimberly-Clark’s Coform technology, Asterion combines the strength of polypropylene with the absorption properties of pulp.

“The composite products are mostly value-added products as they fulfill needs that others can’t,” Mr. Gogus added. “So usually profit margins are better and competition is less, but you have to consider that investment costs can be high and usage is lower compared to commodity products. Considering that, the economies-of-scale costs are higher as well.”