From the Sector

From November 3-5, 2021, JEC Korea 2021 will be held at the COEX and online, via JEC Korea Connect, simultaneously with the first edition of Carbon Korea. Due to the COVID situation, for its 14th edition and 4th time in Seoul, JEC KOREA will bring together exhibitors and attendees in one single hall for both exhibiting companies and conferences, and in a hybrid format with JEC Korea Connect, including digital booths and conferences in livestreaming, to better network and share knowledge.

More than 50 domestic and foreign industry representatives will exhibit in Seoul and online during three days, among which: Hyosung, Toray Korea, Jeollabuk-do pavilion, Leresche, Pinette, MFtech of France, ZSK of Germany, HOS-TECHNIK of Austria. Through this, the entire value chain of composite materials, including large companies as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, gather in one place to showcase their latest technologies and innovations.

JEC KOREA Technical Conference + ICF International Carbon Festival will unite 20 global speakers
for 3 days at the core of the event, as well as online through JEC Korea Connect, improving the composites skills of all attendees. It will be an exchange of technical market trends and innovation under the themes of:

• New Energy / hydrogen and carbon
• Smart Manufacturing
• New mobility and aerospace

Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles concluded its 27th autumn edition in early October. Held alongside four other concurrent textile shows, the fair was the only major event for this sector able to take place in China during this season, providing a much-needed business platform for 735 exhibitors and 20,106 trade buyers. The fair was held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai).

Ms Wendy Wen, Senior General Manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd expressed: “Due to the valuable cooperation of many parties and the continued support of our exhibitors and other partners, we were able to hold the fair as scheduled despite a number of challenges. Since the pandemic situation was brought under control in China last year, we have expended considerable resources to ensure our textile fairs still take place to provide trading platforms that connect the global industry. This edition was especially important as it was the only major fair to take place in the country at this time.”

While a number of international exhibitors participated this year with individual booths, the Belgium Pavilion presented home and contract products and five Chinese regional pavilions from Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Huzhou, Haining, and Tongxiang also featured. Two trend forums also provided inspiration for 2022, while the IKASAS Japanese Home Design Gallery, New Voices of Top Youth Upholstery Designers City Roving Exhibition and China International Fiber Art Exhibition gave further insights into various aspects of the industry.

Fair’s fringe programme highlights sustainability, design and more
As with all of Messe Frankfurt’s textile fairs around the world, sustainability is a big focus. A number of events under this focus took place in the fair’s fringe programme, including a half day forum titled How Sustainable Fashion is Reshaping Lifestyles, with a range of innovative companies and prestigious universities participating as speakers.

The Design Talk session featured a series of presentations from leading international designers, including from China, Japan and Europe, to share their design insights. And a new concept this year, titled New Voices of Top Youth Upholstery Designers – Intertextile Upholstery Design and City Roving Exhibition, showcased the work of six groups of young local designers from across China who presented the interior design ideas of their generation through displays and a forum. And reflecting the changes that continue to accelerate in the industry, a number of e-commerce and cross-border trade events took place, including sessions from the likes of JD Home, AliExpress and Tmall.

The 2022 Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles – Spring Edition will take place from 9 – 11 March, while the Autumn Edition is scheduled for 23 – 25 August 2022.

Reifenhäuser Enka Tecnica will exhibit its wide range of replacement components for spunbond, meltblown, and composite lines at the world's leading nonwovens trade show INDEX in Geneva from October 19 to 22, 2021. The highly specialized custom manufacturer offers high-end technology "Made in Germany" that is 100% compatible with all globally installed lines.

Producers of nonwovens worldwide rely on Enka Tecnica components to manufacture products for complex applications in hygiene, medical or filtration to provide them with access to new profitable markets. Trade-show visitors will gain a detailed insight into the entire range of products, from meltblown and spunbond spinnerets to meltblown cassettes and complete meltblown spinning beams designed with an energy concept optimized for sustainability. The tips and capillaries assure consistent product quality and precision, allowing producers to meet their tolerance specifications reliably and avoid scrap at the same time..

With its refresh service for refurbishing used components, Enka Tecnica not only offers a cost-efficient alternative to new parts, but also extremely fast delivery times, a factor that is often decisive to maintain daily production targets. Visitors to Geneva will be able to see the quality of refresh components displayed at the booth - a meltblown and a spunbond spinneret, half of which has been refurbished. They will be able to see the condition of the capillary holes before and after the refresh through a microscope.

Another trade show highlight includes jet strips for hydroentangling nonwovens. Depending on the application, they are offered in Smart, Advanced, and Premium versions and have a special unique selling point – the strips are fully hardened, whereas competitor products usually only have a hardened surface. This quality advantage results in significantly longer service lives, which is why they are also known on the market as "The World's Hardest Strips”.

SABIC has announced that the newly formed Hygiene & Healthcare segment of its Petrochemicals business will showcase its extensive portfolio of SABIC PURECARES™ polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) polymers for high-purity nonwovens and hygiene films at the upcoming INDEX™ Expo in Geneva, Switzerland, from October 19 through 22, 2021. The company will also present enabling solutions developed with partners to address the issue of plastic waste and support the transformation of the industry towards a circular economy with closed-loop initiatives and certified circular polymers under its TRUCIRCLE™ portfolio and services.

During INDEX, SABIC will exhibit a wide range of PP polymers targeted at these needs. Highlights on display will include dedicated PP and PE grades for lightweight nonwoven fabrics using the latest spunbond and meltblown processes, and a new ultra-high melt flow PP product engineered for meltblown fibers in nonwoven fabrics. The nonwoven focus will be complemented by industry proven polyolefins for cast and blown film applications in hygiene webs and laminates, providing desirable back and top sheet properties such as water tightness, breathability and elasticity.

In addition, SABIC will also present ISCC Plus certified fiber and film polymers based on circular and renewable PP and PE polymer technology as part of the company’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio for advancing the transformation of the plastics industry from a linear to a truly circular economy. Examples of this comprehensive initiative include collaborations with various market leaders in the field. Together with Fibertex Personal Care, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of spunbond nonwovens for the hygiene industry, SABIC is creating a range of high-purity nonwovens for the hygiene market using ISCC PLUS certified circular PP polymer derived from post-consumer plastic waste. In another project, Fraunhofer Institute, SABIC and Procter & Gamble (P&G) joined forces to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of an advanced close-loop recycling process for used nonwoven facemasks.

• Polynova to gain market share for the GRAFE Group in the Swiss region from November The GRAFE Group, Blankenhain, has found a new sales representative for Switzerland in Polynova Group AG, Risch-Rotkreuz (Switzerland).

The partnership will be officially launched at Fakuma 2021. "Our new Swiss agency specialises in the distribution and production of high-quality technical plastic granulates and has been active on the market for more than 20 years. The company has a large customer base and the necessary technical expertise to advance our goals in this important market. This includes raising our profile, educating people about our product range and ultimately gaining market share," says Stefanie Theuerkauf, Sales Manager for the D-A-CH region. Polynova employs five sales staff and three in logistics, all of whom have a technical background. The company's own warehouse in Rothenburg also ensures the availability of the plastics.

"GRAFE fits perfectly into our product portfolio," says Thomas Weigl, co-owner and responsible for business development at the Swiss distribution company, whose employees recently underwent intensive training in Blankenhain. "Our customers come from the sports goods, housing technology, automotive supplier and medical technology sectors - there are many synergies with GRAFE." Weigl himself has extensive experience in the masterbatch sector and has worked for two companies in the industry - Sukano and Americhem - as managing director. "Swiss companies want Swiss contact persons. We speak the languages German, Italian and French, are on site in the shortest possible time, offer direct contact and understand the needs of the customers and the requirements of the market," he explains. "Polynova is thus faster, closer and more direct." "The Swiss market is large and important for us," reports Theuerkauf and Weigl explains the background: "There are over 300 plastics processors, many are family-run and very technically oriented. The origins of the companies are often in the watch industry and in the production of the smallest precision parts such as gear wheels. In addition, coffee machine manufacturers, medical technology providers and automotive suppliers are important market players. A large number of well-known OEMs are located here."

Even though there are already masterbatch manufacturers in the Alpine country, says the sales expert, no one has the know-how to adjust compounds and masterbatches as perfectly and precisely as the company from Thuringia. In addition to a complete range of colours on practically all plastic substrates, flame retardants, UV additives, thermal stabilisers or lubricants are further examples of the extensive product portfolio. GRAFE is one of the specialists in the modification of thermoplastics and is an innovation driver in the production of colour masterbatches. "The technical possibilities in terms of a state-of-the-art technical centre and production machinery, as well as one of the largest research and development departments in the industry, are also not to be found elsewhere on the Swiss market. Our task now is to bring these to the attention of domestic customers," says Thomas Weigl, co-owner of Polynova AG together with founder Renato R. Huebscher.

• Next-Gen Technologies for Nonwovens/Engineered Materials
• Canopy Respirator from Canopy Wins Innovation Award

145 professionals in product development, material science, and new technologies convened for the 11th conference edition of RISE®—Research, Innovation & Science for Engineered Fabrics, held virtually, Sept. 28-30. The event was co-organized by INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, The Nonwovens Institute, and North Carolina State University.

The program focused on Nonwoven Material Science Developments, Sustainability, Increasing Circularity, Promising Innovations, Process Innovations, Material Innovations, Government/NGO Challenges to Single-Use Plastics, Machine-Assisted-Learning Development of Biopolymers, and Market Intelligence and Economic Insights.

Participants praised the high-quality program content, in-depth round table discussions, networking and Q&A’s where participants ask expert speakers questions pertaining to their focused presentations.

Highlights among the 26 presentations included

• Sustainable Solutions for our Plastic Planet Predicament, by Marc A. Hillmyer, Ph.D., McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair, University of Minnesota;
• Closed-Loop Recycling Pilot of Single-Use Face Masks by Peter Dziezok, Ph.D., Director of Open Innovation, Proctor & Gamble;
• Innovating a Sustainable Future for Nonwovens: A European Perspective, by Matt Tipper, Ph.D., CEO, Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute (NIRI);
• Phantom Platform: The Polyolefin-cellulose Coformed Substrates Technology, by Fabio Zampollo, CEO and Founder of Teknoweb Materials; 
• Guiding Environmentally Sustainable Innovations – From Reactive to Proactive Life Cycle Management, by Valentina Prado, Ph.D., Senior Sustainability Analyst, EarthShift Global LLC;  
• High-Loft, Ultra-Soft Hygiene Solutions, Paul E. Rollin, Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist – Global Hygiene, Propylene-Vistamaxx-Adhesion (PVA) Global Technology, ExxonMobil Chemical Company;
• Canadian Plastic Policy Update, by Karyn M. Schmidt, Senior Director, Regulatory & Technical Affairs, American Chemistry Council (ACC).

Other highlights included the announcement of Canopy Respirator as the winner of this year’s RISE® Innovation Award winner. The annual award recognizes innovation in areas within and on the periphery of the nonwovens industry which use advanced science and engineering principles to develop unique or intricate solutions to problems and advance the usage of nonwovens.

RISE® Innovation Award Winner
The RISE® Innovation Award was presented to Canopy for their Canopy Respirator. The productis an innovative respirator that is fully mechanical, non-electrostatic, with a filter designed for superior breathability while offering the wearer facial transparency. The breakthrough respirator features 5.5mm water column resistance at 85 liters (3 cubic feet) per minute, 2-way filtration, and a pleated filter that contains over 500 square centimeters of surface area. The patented Canopy respirator resists fluids, and eliminates fogging of eyeglasses.

The rescheduled Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles, now taking place from 9 – 11 October, will once again provide the industry with insight into the future through its fringe programme’s four categories: Design Inspiration, Business O2O, Textiles & Technologies and Industry Empowerment. And with the Online Business Matching sourcing platform returning this edition, buyers worldwide can still participate in the fair.

Each of the fringe programme’s four categories – Design Inspiration, Business O2O (online to offline), Textiles & Technologies and Industry Empowerment – features a mix of conferences, seminars and presentations that reflect the future of the home textile industry. Highlights of each category are included below, while further details can be found on the fair’s website: https://intertextile-shanghai-hometextiles-autumn.hk.messefrankfurt.com/shanghai/en/programme-events.html.

Since 2019, Messe Frankfurt has been working with the Conscious Fashion Campaign and United Nations Office for Partnerships as part of the Texpertise Network and supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The goals will be presented gradually at global textile events in order to highlight the most pressing challenges facing the textile and fashion industry worldwide.

Industry Empowerment: antimicrobial technologies and licensing in the home textile sector

Growing awareness of health and hygiene has increased the demand for antimicrobial and other functional textiles. Seminars hosted by the Chinese Industry Association for Antimicrobial Materials & Products will further discuss the increasing prominence of these textiles, as well as how the adoption of new antimicrobial textile technologies is expected to evolve in the future. In addition, experts will share the new trends of licensing and IP with case studies for the furniture companies and fabric brands.

2022 China Home Textile Trends

The China Home Textiles Trend Area will feature the research of the China Home Textile Association, The Department of Home Textile Trend Research and Promotion and Concept & Style Fashion Project Group Italy who shared their knowledge, inspirations and exchanged their visions of trend evolutions considering consumer demand, retail expertise, the contract market and new technologies.

Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles – Autumn Edition 2021 will be held concurrently with Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – Autumn Edition, Yarn Expo Autumn, PH Value and CHIC at the National Exhibition and Convention Center. Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles – Autumn Edition is organised by Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd; the Sub-Council of Textile Industry, CCPIT; and the China Home Textile Association (CHTA).

The UK’s Fibre Extrusion Technology (FET) will introduce its new lab-scale spunbond system at the forthcoming INDEX 2020 nonwovens exhibition taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, from October 19-22.

The new spunbond range provides unprecedented opportunities for the scaled development of new nonwoven fabrics based on a wide range of fibres and polymers, including bicomponents.

FET has already supplied one of these new spunbond lines to University of Leeds in the UK, and a second, in combination with a metlblown line, to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.

“Our new spunbond technology is unique in providing the ability to process a wide range of polymers, including those normally not considered appropriate for the spunbond process, at the scale required to fully explore material combinations and bring new products to market,” says FET Managing Director Richard Slack. “FET has built on its melt spinning expertise to develop a true laboratory scale spunbond system.”

• At this year’s INDEX from October 19th to October 22nd, Truetzschler Nonwovens, Truetzschler Card Clothing and Voith introduce new solutions for manufacturing a broad range of sustainable nonwovens for wipes, hygiene or medical textiles at booth 2327.

Plastic-free initiatives worldwide affect everyone: consumers, product developers, nonwoven producers and finally nonwoven machinery suppliers.

Truetzschler Nonwovens and Voith address the quest for more sustainable and affordable nonwovens in the wipes segment by two proven technologies for manufacturing pulp-based nonwovens. Firstly, WLS (Wet-Laid/Spunlaced) lines. More than a handful are in service worldwide and mainly target the flushable wipes market. At INDEX we’ll introduce our latest nextLevel/WLS baby and body wipes, a joint development by Voith and Truetzschler.

The second focus is on carded/pulp (CP) products. A CP line – including a TWF-NCT card placed between the HydroFormer and the AquaJet is already running to full capacity at customer site. Various CP materials, including innovative nextLevel/CP wipes, will be on display at the booth and invite visitors to discuss characteristics, benefits, line concepts and equipment.

When talking sustainable nonwovens, solutions for efficiently manufacturing biodegradable nonwovens from virgin cotton fibers, comber noils and viscose/lyocell fibers must not be missing. Visitors can look forward to directly comparing cotton nonwovens to a broad range of cellulose-based material.

Truetzschler Card Clothing, our in-house competence center with respect to card clothings and comprehensive service, presents its latest development, the Z wire for high-speed roller cards. A new geometry minimizes fiber fly and allows for better carding and more stable web forming.

After being rewarded with the 2021 C.L.A.S.S. Icon Award, Portuguese brand Duarte is ready to present its Spring/Summer 2022 collection developed in collaboration with C.L.A.S.S. ecohub. The streetwear designer Ana Duarte has worked in close contact with the Milanese hub in order to create a 40 pieces collection where the approach to materials, suppliers, new business models and communication could include and support a holistic view of the sustainable values aligned with style, performances, look and touch and Duarte identity.

The inspiration behind this collection is the superhero Tadao – Ana Duarte’s dog – which is the World Keeper fighting against the environmental issues mankind has generated.

With the support of WHITE and its WSM (WHITE Sustainable Milano), Duarte’s creations will be featured online on the digital space of WSM-WHITE website, as well as being shown in a dedicated physical booth on September during Milan Fashion Week. The collection will also be presented on its new brand page on Renoon, an online platform devoted to Responsible Shopping. In addition, Duarte will be supported by IDEE Brand Platform in the development of commercial activities for the SS22 collection.