The market for natural fibers—including cotton, viscose, flax and hemp—is set for rapid growth during the next decade driven by combined forces of global plastics legislation, strong consumer preferences and sustainability goals put in place by major brands and retailers as well as their suppliers.

An overall reduction in synthetic or plastic-based fibers will lead to increases in the use of both natural and man-made cellulosic fibers which offer benefits like biodegradability and compostability and contribute to the goal of a circular economy. The emergence of more natural-minded consumers who pay greater attention to the materials that go in and near their bodies is also driving the need for more natural materials.

“Awareness of sustainability problems and the impact of non-biodegradable waste in our environment has motivated companies and their supply chains to take action,” says Janet O’Regan, director of nonwovens marketing at Cotton Incorporated. “This is not new. It has been building for many years now, becoming more visible and important.”

This growth has been driven by both brands and retailers who have developed sustainability goals as part of their standard business reporting, pushing the pressure to include more sustainable materials to their suppliers. More importantly, the European Union’s single use plastics directive, which is set to go into effect in July 2021, has put the pressure on makers of wipes and feminine hygiene products, which are on the first list of products subject to regulations and labeling requirements.

“Our customers are increasingly interested in sustainable solutions,” says Bryan Tickle, account executive, Leigh Fibers. “As the general public demands more recycled content in the products they buy, our customers are looking to us for solutions.”

The use of cotton and other natural fibers has also been boosted by concerns over health and safety. This is evident in areas like feminine hygiene and baby diapers due to concerns over health and safety as consumers want more natural materials near their skin. This fiber has become a preferred choice not just for natural-based brands but also for global producers looking to appeal to new consumers.

According to Rahul Bansal, global business development head, nonwovens, at Birla Cellulose, cost and performance have been replaced by a combination of sustainability, performance and cost as key drivers for fiber selection. “Now, the raw material selection primarily depends on being sustainable in nature,” he says. “When I say sustainable, it means the raw material sourcing, manufacturing, product and its end of life phase don’t harm or degrade the environment, and this is followed by the most important criteria of suitability of raw material for present nonwoven technologies. “

Consider Cotton
The name recognition of cotton—consumers know and love cotton—has helped it expand its reach in consumer products like wipes and hygiene items. Additionally, cotton is safe and healthy for skin as it is naturally hypoallergenic. This is particularly important for people with sensitive skin and products designed to be used in areas of the body where skin tends to be more sensitive like baby diapers, feminine hygiene and adult care products.

“We continue to see more cotton-containing products launch and certainly hope that this trend continues,” says Lawson Gary, CEO of WildWood Cotton Technologies (formerly TJ Beall). “Traditionally, cotton was considered only for the absorbent component of a baby wipe, but with our hydrophobic TruCotton product, cotton can now be used as a replacement for polyester or polypropylene.”

Meanwhile, in hygiene, the interest in cotton-containing topsheets that touch the user’s skin has exploded. This is especially true in feminine care products. “Our fiber’s unique surface chemistry offers predictable and unvarying fluid management properties which make it ideal for these types of applications,“ Gary adds.

In addition to softness and skin feel, the use of cotton is growing as government mandates are limiting the use of plastic feedstocks in single use goods, requiring manufacturers to consider new materials in products like disposable wipes and hygiene products.

“We believe cotton is well-situated to grow its marketshare as a renewable, biodegradable and compostable cellulosic fiber,” Gary says. “Cotton is the oldest and most trusted fiber on earth; consumers want cotton. Bleached cotton works well in many of the traditional absorbent fiber applications. Our TruCotton product helps overcome cost, throughput, and fluid management issues that many of the brands and manufacturers have experienced with cotton in the past.”

Recent developments from WildWood include carded-pulp-carded spunlace materials, partnering with both Cotton Incorporatedand Lenzing. It is producing trial quantities of short-cut TruCotton for wetlaid and airlaid applications, as well as cotton flock for coform applications. It is also now commercial with its TruCotton blends that include exotic fibers such as kapok and raw hemp. 

According to Lewis Barnhardt, president of cotton manufacturer Barnhardt Manufacturing, as ingredient transparency is becoming more important, particularly with female consumersm the use of cotton has become more prominent in hygiene areas. “Female owned hygiene companies have led the charge in ingredient transparency and it is carrying over into the bigger brands as well,” he says. However, the use of cotton in these products will continue to be small compared to other materials, he adds. “There is not enough purified cotton available to fill even a small percentage of the fibers that go into hygiene and wipes.”

To help meet growing demand for replacement fibers in nonwoven products, Barnhardt is exploring materials beyond cotton that may be able to replace synthetic materials in single use products like wet wipes.

Barnhardt uses EVOC, shorthand for Enhanced Visual Opening and Cleaning System, to meticulously removes all of the foreign substances from each cotton in order to produce the clean, white, pure cotton fiber that consumers expect from their feminine care and baby care products. EVOC makes it possible for cotton to replace synthetic fibers and other less sustainable materials in even the most discerning applications of 100% cotton nonwovens, including very lightweight nonwovens purposed for hygiene

Cotton growers are also working to increase yields and improve the sustainability profile of the fibers. During the past 20 years, cotton growers have worked to do more with less. They have increased yields without increasing water use and globally cotton uses just 3% of all water used in agriculture.

“Cotton is grown in approximately 80 countries and uses only 0.6% of the world’s agricultural lands. Its natural drought tolerance, minimal irrigation needs and ability to thrive in arid climates makes it one of the most versatile crops on the planet, producing both fiber and food (cotton seeds and cotton seed oil),” O’Regan says.

During the next 10 years, cotton growers are aiming to increase soil carbon and land efficiency and reduce soil loss, water use and energy use, and already cotton is available in a number of forms—natural cleaned cotton is soft, hydrophobic and hypoallergenic; purified cotton; linters and combers, shot cut cotton; and cotton flock.

More specifically to nonwovens, manufacturers like Barnhardt are relying on inline vision systems to help eliminate agro contamination and mechanical cleaning to keep cotton pure. “We are doing things to make our cotton as clean as possible,” he says. “That is what we are focusing on...making it as pure as possible.”

These efforts have helped nonwovens producers remove certain obstacles associated with processing cotton and other natural fibers compared to more controllable, synthetic materials.

“The nonwovens industry has grown up with fibers and raw materials that are produced to be identical. This has facilitated engineering of equipment and processing,” O’Regan says. “Cotton is a product of Mother Nature. Variability is natural. Length is within a shorter range than synthetic fibers used in our industry. These are problems that have been overcome. Technology and expertise around the world, over the past 20 years, has continued to develop as nonwovens producers seek to respond to shifting sands of demand for more natural and biodegradable materials.” 

Bast from the Past
While fibers like hemp and flax, known as bast fibers, have been around for 30,000 years, they have historically played a small role in the nonwovens industry. However, recent advancements from Bast Fibre Tech (BFT) are paving the way for the materials in nonwovens for applications like disposable wipes and hygiene products.

Bast Fibre Tech is a clean tech fiber engineering firm manufacturing specialty natural fibers from hemp and flax plants for nonwovens applications using  advanced processing technology. These fibers offer a sustainable option to nonwovens manufacturers and their customers.

“There are myriad areas where these fibers can go into wipes—from cleaning to babies to industrial areas—and there are also a lot of hygiene customers that are looking to begin moving to a more sustainable solution,” says president Jim Posa.

Fibers from hemp and flax plants have not traditionally been used in nonwovens applications because of consistency and cleanliness issues, but BFT has spent the last 18 months working to control fiber length, micron sizes, cleanliness and individualization of the fibers and doing trials on various nonwovens technologies including wetlaid and spunlace. The company will expand these efforts this summer when it completes work on its own manufacturing site in Germany.

“We have done trials with a number of large nonwovens companies and have spent time with consumer goods companies who have contacted us directly,” Posa says.

The fibers can be run on high speed cards designed to run synthetic materials in blends of 60% or so to maintain uniformity and strength. In systems used to running cotton or other natural fibers, these materials can be processed at up to 100%.

“We are working with manufacturers to increase the percentages and in the next year, we expect it will go beyond 60% on even the new high speed cards being used,” Posa adds.

Compared to other natural fibers like cotton and viscose, hemp and flax use very little water or pesticides to grow and as an annual crop is replenished each year, unlike the large older growth forests. Additionally, the fibers have just a 90 day grow cycle and actually put nutrients back in the soil to prepare it for future crops. “It actually improves the soil for the next crop so it’s a great rotational crop and you’re not losing a food source.”

According to Posa, the movement to alternative fiber materials in nonwovens has been on the horizon for a long time. “With the legislation in the EU against single use plastics and particularly wipes, the movement is accelerating,” he adds. “There will be penalties for companies that are putting single use plastic products out in the environment. Meanwhile, consumers are also starting to realize that they don’t like throwing all this plastic out that can end up in landfills or into the water system or oceans. Solutions are being pushed from the consumer side. Europe is ahead of North America, which is why our first facility is in Europe.”

Viscose Works
Thanks to their natural properties like absorbency, softness and skin-friendliness, viscose fibers have been playing an essential role in the hygiene sector for many years, and increasing demand for environmentally friendly solutions has made their role even more important.

“Up to now, most hygiene products are made with synthetic fibers and designed for the convenient single use,” says Matthew North, commercial director, Kelheim Fibres. “The downside of this convenience is an enormous amount of waste. Unfortunately, a significant part of that waste ends up in our waters and ultimately in the oceans, contributing to one of the most serious environmental hazards of our times. The plastic contamination of our oceans not only threatens the habitat of numerous animals – the (micro)plastic also enters our food chain, with hitherto unknown consequences.”

In contrast to fossil-based fibers, viscose fibers are made from renewable materials and, after their use, biodegradable. Substituting synthetic fibers in hygiene applications by biodegradable fibers means a relief for the environment. While more customers see the benefits that viscose fibers offer in terms of sustainability and performance for their products, some companies are demonizing all man-made fibers - often because of a lack of information. They know too little about the differences in terms of raw material, production process and suitable applications.

“We try to help them first by continuously improving our products – giving them more functionalities, adapting them perfectly to our customers processes, increasing their sustainability credentials,” North says. “And we try to raise awareness with the latter. We are convinced that our viscose fibers can be a part of the solution of our plastic waste problem.”

In addition to their natural properties, viscose offer flexibility to tailor to the specific requirements of the end product or nonwoven. Kelheim’s speciality fibers include (among many others) short cut fibers, ideally adapted for the production of flushable wet wipes, but also a range of fibers designed to meet the different needs of the individual nonwoven layers in absorbent hygiene products.

“Particularly in the field of AHP products, users are not prepared to compromise on performance, on the contrary: AHP products must be absolutely reliable,” North says. “Our fibers enable – for the first time – the production of fully biodegradable AHPs offering the same level of performance and reliability as their synthetic counterparts.”

To effectively develop fiber specialization, Kelheim relies on an open innovation approach, which is based on three crucial factors—tracking mega trends, developing in dialogue with customers and working proactively in innovation networks. At the heart of this approach is identifying the customers’ “unmet needs” and translating them into fiber solutions, says Marina Crnoja-Cosic, director new Business Development.

This enables Kelheim to offer its customers tailor-made fibers so every fiber considers the requirements of the production process as well as the end product. “Therefore, our focus is not on spinning lines with a huge capacity in terms of production quantity, we need our production technology to be flexible and adjustable. For the last 10 years, we have increased our capacity for short-cut fibers (e.g. for flushable wipes) and in general the proportion of nonwovens fibers. Apart from that, enhancing our technology and products is a continuous process for us. Our claim is to be one step better with every challenge.”

To meet the need for viscose in wipes, hygiene products and other items, companies continue to increase output of the material globally. Birla is currently in the process of increasing its production capacity by 230,000 tons per year by end the end of 2021. “We don’t see any immediate challenge in availability of viscose fibers for such raw material shift in the wipes segment. But we do see the demand for viscose fiber increasing, especially for the sustainability verified viscose fibers to ensure sustainable value chain,“ says Bansal.

During last decade, Birla has made substantial investments in improving the processes and its sustainability profile while getting its materials and its processes verified as per the highest global standards. “We saw a major shift only when the value chain started believing in these results and brands and retailers started getting the work validated by independent bodies,“ Bansal says.

The result of this work is the company’s brand Purocel, which is built on the tenets of Planet, Innovation and Partnerships. “Open innovation with our value chain partners helped us in taking our innovations to the market quickly and effectively,“ he adds. “We have developed a wide range of functional fibers with application specific properties.”

Products include: Purocel EcoDry, sustainable fibers for top-sheet applications in absorbent hygiene products, Purocel EcoFlush, which are specialized short fibers for making flushable moist toilet tissues using wetlaid and airlaid technology; Purocel antimicrobial for safer 100% viscose wipes; Purocel Quat Release (QR), sustainable fibers for effective cleaning and disinfection; Purocel Color Guard, unique fibers having inherent property to ensure protection of clothes from cross-staining by color bleeding from accompanying garments during a machine wash; and Purocel Eco, eco-enhanced viscose with enhanced sustainability credentials for a better tomorrow. Its use can be verified in the end products through a unique tracer / identifier in these fibers.

From viscose to fibers to flax—and even plastic based synthetic fibers—the nonwovens will continue to touch new areas thanks to innovations from these fiber producers. “My position with respect to other fibers has always been that we all live in a very large, global market with a myriad of segments and opportunities for product development,” O’Regan says. “There is room for many fibers, even ones with smaller market shares to contribute to have successful businesses and contribute to our worldwide industry.”

FiberVisions, Avgol Focus on Biodegradable Polyolefins
Fiber producer FiberVisions, and spunlaid nonwoven manufacturer Avgol – both part of global chemical producer Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL) – have worked closely with scientists at Polymateria to commercially harness the innovative ‘biotransformation’ technology pioneered by the U.K.-based company. The patented technology alters the properties of polyolefins to make them biodegradable in a natural process.
The biotransformation technology allows the companies to bring disposable products a managed lifecycle and further expand thier catalogs of fiber/spunlaid offerings. The focus of these efforts will be in the launch of non-oxo-degradative components for personal protection masks and face covering, hygiene, agricultural, industrial and homecare applications.

The use of biotransformation technology will support application in non-virgin resin recycling while providing a solution for ‘fugitive’ used articles, including those items that have not been properly recycled or disposed of. This process involves the material decomposing into a wax, wherein the wax is further degraded by environmental bacterial action into carbon dioxide, water and biomass.

The parties have been developing prototypes of component fiber and nonwoven products. The first prototypes developed through the partnership have been tested and are compliant with the stringent testing for biodegradability defined in British Standards Institute’s (BSI) standard for Biodegradation.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Polymateria to bring their revolutionary technology into our fibers business and sustainability portfolio more broadly,” says D. K. Agarwal, CEO of Indorama Ventures. “The collaboration between our businesses over the last 18 months has been exemplary and created a credible and scalable solution to an increasingly visible environmental issue”.

Niall Dunne, CEO of Polymateria, says, “With 32% of all plastic winding up in our natural environment each year we need to ensure we are working with partners who can enable scalable solutions to address what is becoming close to a 100 million tons per year problem. The trust that has emerged between our businesses has been grounded in science.”