From the Sector

New ideas were exchanged, brainstormed, and discussed freely at members’ booths at the Swiss Textile Machinery Pavilion during the recent Techtextil in Frankfurt. “Customers and researchers met Swiss textile machinery companies to explore the possibility of the not-yet-invented. “We regard our Pavilion as the place where future innovations catch a spark,” says Cornelia Buchwalder, Secretary General of the Swiss Textile Machinery Association. Further developments in the field of hybrid yarns were a hot topic. One example of this involves producing a yarn which has all the typical characteristics and advantages of carbon – but which also prioritizes careful use of resources, combining carbon fibres with thermoplastics.

Technical textiles cover a vast range of applications, and it’s still growing thanks to intensive research by specialist institutes and universities. Many members of the Swiss Textile Machinery Association maintain long-standing partnership with such bodies. Innovations are often joint efforts.

Feel-good technical fabrics
Some technical textiles feel like a second skin. A well-known example is activewear from the ‘sport tech’ field. Activewear includes breathable clothing, usually consisting of a three-layer-laminate: an inner lining, a breathable membrane in the center, and an outer fabric. The challenge is to bond the individual layers without losing breathability or softness, while meeting technical requirements such as resistance to a number of wash cycles.

Bonding solutions meeting top quality requirements, as well as ambitious standards for environmental protection and sustainability, were reinvented by the Cavitec brand from the Santex Rimar Group. This company’s hotmelt technology uses one-component polymers applied to textiles in a hot, molten state. Bonding based on hotmelts is both water- and solvent-free. Drying and exhaust air cleaning are not necessary, which is an ecological advantage. Energy consumption is also significantly lower. Cavitec hotmelt technology is also developed for laminated medical protection fabrics which are safe, high-quality and sustainable. These fabrics can be washed, sterilized, and used again.   

A second skin with added value is the result of Jakob Müller Group’s cooperation with an institute for an established outdoor fashion brand. They have devised a heating mat applied as an inner jacket. Outdoor gear with a heated inlay offers the wearer a comfortable feeling even in a cold climate. The heating mat is particularly light, breathable, flexible and adjustable to three temperature levels.

Fabrics with these advantages are now possible thanks to multi direct weaving (MDW) technology from the Jakob Müller Group. A lacquer-insulated heating strand is inserted into the base textile as a ‘meander’ using MDW technology. The technology is offered with both label weaving machines and the latest generation of ribbon weaving machines. The textile pocket calculator is another MDW based future-oriented application developed in cooperation with a textile research institute.

Safety and health
Life-saving reliability is a must for vehicle airbags. They have to fulfil high security aspects, and must remain inflated for several seconds when an accident occurs. Airbags made of flat-woven fabric – cut and seamed – can show weakness at seams during the inflation phase. Latest Jacquard technology by Stäubli enables one-piece-woven (OPW) airbags to be produced, creating shape and structure in a single process. The final product is an airbag consisting of a sealed cushion with woven seams. OPW airbag weaving reduces the number of production steps, and increases the security aspects.
Another big advantage of Stäubli’s new weaving technology is the flexibility in formats required in today’s mid- and upper-range cars, where lateral protection (in the seat or in the roof over the door) has become standard and is designed in line with the car shape. Safe airbags are woven on modern high-speed weaving machines. The warp material, the variety of fabric patterns, and the importance of precisely shaped airbags require the use of a robust and reliable Jacquard machine.

A revolution for orthopaedic patients is a knitting machine from Steiger Participations, which uses compressive yarns developed to meet the needs of the specific health market. This machine model was exclusively designed for production with inlaid elastic yarns and offers optimum performance with guaranteed final product quality.

In the orthopaedic field, many Steiger flat knitting machines have already been operating as automatic, custom-made production systems. For example, the dimensions of an injured limb are taken by the doctor and fed into a web-based application. The doctor selects the compression class in the various sections of the item and a data file created by the software automatically applies a preconfigured program. With no human intervention required, the program is generated and produced on the machine, precisely matching the patient’s dimensions. Each product is different, and generally available within 48 hours.

A delegation from TMAS, the Swedish textile machinery association, will participate in the forthcoming Febratex textile show which is being held in the German Village Park in Blumenau, in Santa Catarina, Brazil from August 23-26.

As the fourth largest textiles manufacturer in the world, Brazil’s annual revenues from textiles and apparel amount to an annual $48 billion and the industry employs around 1.5 million people directly.

As with the USA and many European countries, product shortages resulting directly from the Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequent supply chain difficulties, have emphasised to Brazil’s industry the attractiveness of more diversified and shorter supply chains which are closer to customers wherever possible. In the past two years, there has been less reliance on imports from Asia to Brazil, and opportunities are arising again for local manufacturing.

Svegea of Sweden has supplied many automatic collarette cutters to Brazilian companies, which are used by garment manufacturers around the world for the production of tubular apparel components such as cuff and neck tapes and other seam reinforcements.

Svegea supplies many other bespoke machines for applications in the production of both garment components and technical textiles, including rewinding, measuring, inspection and band knife machines.

Eton Systems, the inventor and world’s leading provider of automated production systems for apparel and other textile-based processes, has supplied a large amount of workstations to Brazilian companies over the years, and believes its newly-launched Opta system is good news for this market becoming more efficient and profitable.

Automation is also high on the agenda of ACG Kinna Automatic, which specialises in automation solutions for filled products such as quilts, pillows and mattresses and also has extensive knowledge in areas such as bed linen and textile filters.

Given Brazil’s extensive forestry sector, the country is a key market for Texo AB, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of weaving machines for the production of paper machine clothing (PMC).

All paper manufacturing machines require a regular supply of PMC, which as large continuous engineered fabrics, carry the paper stock through each stage of the paper production process. With technologically sophisticated designs, they employ fibres and other polymeric materials in complex structures and each paper machine has an average of ten separate fabrics installed on it. Although the PMC business represents just a small proportion of the total cost of manufacturing paper, it can have a significant impact on the quality of the paper, the efficiency of a machine and machine production rates.

The new Swedish luxury womenswear brand presented its first couture runway show, ‘Midnight in the Persian Garden’, in the Salle des Textiles of Paris’ Musée des Arts et Métiers on Thursday, July 7th at 10.30am CET.

As earthly manifestations of an imaginary paradise, where architecture and horticulture were brought together into meticulous perfection, the Persian garden was the point of inspiration for ArdAzAei’s debut couture collection.
A poetic ode to the transcendent beauty of nature, ‘Midnight in the Persian Garden’ honours the incredibly complex systems of engineering required to create such sublime spaces through couture’s intricate techniques of smocking, pleating, embroidery, and appliqué.
 
An evening wear collection of red-carpet gowns and cocktail dresses, tailoring, jewellery and accessories, the collection sees a recurring reference to the Persian Rose and the Parrot Tulip, with the flowers informing silhouettes, three-dimensional sculptural forms, and elaborately embroidered jacquard.
 
Sharp tailoring in the form of contemporary women’s suits see sleek jackets and flared pants with hypnotic floral patterning evoking the undulating chaos of nature’s rhythms.
 
Another key theme running throughout the collection is the dynamic between mathematic forms of composition—a key element of Persian garden architecture—and the craft of the handmade, evident in crystal sequins custom-cut to the lines of the ArdAzAei logo, designed by M/M (Paris), which are then hand-embroidered to create organic forms.
 
The dynamic is also evident in an evening dress which sees 60 metres of fabric pleated and cut into geometric shapes appliqued to its top, while 100 hand-painted pleated fans go into the construction of its flared skirt.

In order to realise such intricate forms of construction, the collection is made in France in collaboration with highly skilled couture artisans focused on upholding the highest craftsmanship and material standards. The show venue, the ‘Salle des Textiles’ at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, pays homage to the country’s rare artisanal expertise.

“I have been searching for the long-lasting beauty and respect for nature that you’ll find in the Persian garden, some of which date back to as early as 4,000 BC,” says Bahareh Ardakani, ArdAzAei’s founder and creative director.
 
“This is reflected in our endeavours to certify part of our collection to the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), and why this collection is made in France with the country’s leading couture artisans. Every detail is precious, and we want to express the feeling of walking through a Persian garden in the midnight to the smallest of details.”
 
With ateliers in Paris and Stockholm, ArdAzAei is where Persian heritage, Swedish modernism and French savoir-faire collide.

As a luxury womenswear brand engaged in the search for the sublime, ArdAzAei eschews trend-based consumption to instead offer made-to-measure couture, and one prêt-à-porter collection of formalwear per year, released in drops according to the seasons on the digital flagship ArdAzAei.com
 
ArdAzAei focuses on working with textile suppliers that can reveal the details of the origins and processes behind its products, tracing each fabric right through the supply chain of raw materials, yarn spinners, weavers, print and dying techniques.

The recent Techtextil show in Frankfurt emphasised the diversity of applications for nonwovens and technical textiles, according to finishing technology specialist Monforts.

“We fielded enquiries at top management level from an extremely wide range of companies, all with very different ideas for new product applications during the show,” said Alexander Fitz, who joined the company a year ago as engineer for textile technologies and co-ordinator of the Monforts Advanced Technology Centre (ATC). Fitz brings a background in both technical textile technology and processes to the role, having previously worked for a nonwovens machinery builder and a roll-goods manufacturer.

Trials
“We are now looking forward to interesting new trials and pilot production runs, as well as the commissioning of new orders for machines resulting from the extremely busy exhibition,” he says. “Obviously, everyone at the moment is looking to make energy savings, and we have developed a range of options for helping companies increase their resource efficiency, both on new lines and as retrofitted systems, but this is not stifling innovation at the new material level.

“There was a lot of interest in what is possible with the Montex®Coat coating system and the range of different techniques it enables, and at our ATC in Mönchengladbach, a Montex®Coat unit is integrated into the full technical textiles pilot line, on which it is possible to run new fabrics in widths of up to 1.8 metres.”

Explosion proof
The technical textiles line at the ATC incorporates a Montex four-chamber stenter and is fitted with an explosion-proof coating application chamber in order to allow treatment to be carried out with organic solvents and other volatile materials.

Every single component within the chamber has to meet the standards of the European Union’s ATEX directives for working in a potentially explosive atmosphere. A range of sensors linked to alarms operate at various levels within the chamber to ensure the specified lower explosion limit (LOL) is never exceeded and the ventilation adapts accordingly.

Advanced functions
Special features on the finishing line relate to further advanced functions such as the ability to treat materials not only at temperatures of up to 320°C, but also to be able to treat the top and bottom faces of certain materials at different temperatures within a single pass through the machine.

To achieve this, the first two chambers of the stenter are fitted with special, heavy duty TwinAir ventilation motors and separate burners for individual top/bottom temperature. A temperature differential of up to 60°C can be achieved between the upper and lower nozzles within the chamber, depending on the treatment paramenters.

Another key feature of the technical textiles line at the ATC is the special stretching device which is capable of pulling ten tons in length and ten tons in width – a huge amount per square metre of fabric and necessary in the production of materials such as woven or 3D knits for high temperature filter media.

The electrolyser producer Enapter has set itself the goal of developing its entire production process to run without negative impacts on the environment. As an important step on this journey, it is building the Enapter Campus production facility, which will be powered entirely from renewable energy produced on-site and in the neighbouring Bioenergiepark. The site in in Saerbeck, North Rhine-Westphalia combines electrolyser production, an R&D building, administration and office space, as well as a cantine over 82,000 square metres. Now the company wants to investigate what other measures can be implemented to achieve its “Life Cycle Impact Zero” aspirations – together with researchers from Fraunhofer UMSICHT, the Wuppertal Institute and the Institute of Sustainable Nutrition (iSuN) of FH Münster.

With the Life Cycle Impact Zero project, started on April 15, 2022, the parties want to develop and apply an especially comprehensive and holistic approach to environmental assessment. This includes chemical manufacturing and electrolyser production, as well as matters like the use of energy and water resources, the generation of waste or the human factor in general. This is intended to cover all interactions between business and people. That includes, in particular, Enapter’s employees, but also people in upstream and downstream value chains, users of the technology or residents close to the production site. A concept for sustainable employee catering is also being developed.

The basis for all environmental assessment that will be carried out is ISO 14040. The recognised international standard divides the research into four phases: Aim and scope of the study, inventory analaysis, impact assessment, as well as interpretation. Sensitivity analyses and scenario techniques are also used as further methods.

On the basis of these analyses, the 18-month project should derive concrete measures to avoid negative environmental impacts completely, if possible, for example in production, employee mobility or in energy supply. Furthermore, it will examine whether these measures are transferable to Enapter’s other locations – such as in Italy. Following on from the project, the steps defined should be implemented by Enapter in the next phase. In the subsequent Phase 3, a renewed analysis is planned. This will determine if the technological innovations achieved by then in the production and use of Enapter’s electrolysers can enable additional ecological improvements.

The Life Cycle Impact Zero project is supported by the State of NRW.

DOMO Chemicals, a producer of engineered polyamide materials, and Hynamics, a 100% subsidiary of EDF Group specializing in the production of low-carbon hydrogen, have entered into a partnership project with the objective of achieving zero-carbon for 100% of the hydrogen used at the Belle-Étoile industrial site, in Saint-Fons (south of Lyon, France), in the heart of the French Vallée de la Chimie (“Chemistry Valley”).

For the first time in France, the “HyDom” project will enable the installation of an 85-megawatt (MW) hydrogen production plant using the water electrolysis process at the Belle-Étoile site, with a production capacity of 11,000 metric tons of low-carbon hydrogen per year. The plant will be powered by the French low-carbon electric power mix. By 2027, it will supply 100% of the annual production of hexamethylene diamine, a key component used in the production of plastics.

The project will eventually prevent the emission of 84 kilotons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year. Hexamethylene diamine, and ultimately, durable and low-carbon polyamides, will be used in various applications in major industry sectors, such as automotive, electronics, and heating & cooling.
This project is a major step towards the decarbonization of industrial sites that use grey hydrogen (produced from fossil fuels). The location in the Vallée de la Chimie within the vicinity of major transport routes opens up opportunities for the creation of a more complete hydrogen ecosystem.

The first phase of the project will consist of building up and ascertaining technical concepts and integrating the low-carbon hydrogen production plant within the larger production process of hexamethylene diamine.

Considering the high-power scale of the future electrolytic hydrogen production facility, the HyDom project is being developed in close collaboration with RTE (an organization in charge of managing the French power grid), to solve connection issues. As a priority project for the industry's zero-carbon strategy and for the “France 2030” investment plan, HyDom is supported by the French government and has been presented to the European Commission for public funding.

ITM 2022 hosted textile technology leaders in Istanbul for 5 days, presenting the latest innovations in every field of textile from weaving, knitting, yarn, digital printing, finishing to denim. The ITM 2022 Exhibition, where a business volume of over 1.5 billion Euros was created in 5 days, accelerated the Turkish and world economy.

Organized by the partnership of Teknik Fairs Inc. and Tüyap Tüm Fuarcılık Yapım Inc., ITM 2022- International Textile Machinery Exhibition was held at Tüyap Fair and Congress Center between 14-18 June.  ITM 2022 Exhibition, attended by 1280 companies and company representatives from 65 countries, was visited by 64,500 people from 102 countries, consisting of 44% international and 56% domestic visitors.

Turkey became a Supply Center at the ITM 2022 Exhibition
The successful sales graph achieved at the ITM 2022 Exhibition proved that the difficulties experienced due to the pandemic for the last 3 years have been left behind. Turkey has become a supply center for European, Middle Eastern and African countries, especially with the disruption of the supply chain in Far East countries, including China. The profile of the professional visitors visiting the ITM 2022 Exhibition revealed that in the new world order that has shifted after the pandemic, the trade network has also changed hands and new players have appeared on the scene. The fact that manufacturers from all over the world such as Andorra, Angola, Honduras, Peru, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Egypt, Iran, and Oman purchased a large number of machinery and signed collaborations at the ITM 2022 Exhibition has proven this.

Exhibitors of ITM 2022 enlarge their stands for ITM 2024
Many company officials, who stated that they have achieved a sales graphic far above their expectations starting from the very first day of the ITM 2022 Exhibition and that they have hosted visitors from all over the world, decided to enlarge their stands at the ITM 2024 Exhibition. During the exhibition, companies visited the registration application points and applied for ITM 2024 participation.

The next meeting of the ITM and HIGHTEX Exhibitions will be held in Istanbul between 4-8 June 2024.

Stahl, a proponent of responsible chemistry, is submitting a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target that is aligned with the most recent guidance provided by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The new target marks a key milestone on the company’s journey toward carbon neutrality.

Stahl’s SBTi submission includes a specific commitment regarding the company’s Scope 3 upstream emissions, which Stahl aims to reduce by at least 25% over the next 10 years, compared with the base year (2021). This reduction would primarily be achieved by Stahl replacing its fossil-based raw materials with lower-carbon alternatives. The target is a major step towards the objective of limiting global warming temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050, as agreed at the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.
 
Stahl’s extended commitment builds on the company’s existing targets to reduce its emission for Scopes 1 and 2, which were set shortly after the Paris Agreement in 2015. Stahl has since reduced its Scope 1 and 2 (direct) GHG emissions by more than 30%, thanks to operational efficiency gains and by decarbonizing its energy supply.

Scope 3 GHG emissions cover all the additional indirect emissions that can occur in the value chain, including those associated with purchased raw materials, packaging, business travel, and transportation. Stahl’s Scope 3 emissions currently represent over 90% of its carbon footprint.

Archroma launched Perapret® AIR liq, a new light-activated air purification technology for all kinds of fabrics. The new innovation was presented at the Techtextil last month.

The mineral-based Perapret® AIR liq eliminates air pollutants and airborne smells by imitating the natural process of photocatalysis under normal day and artificial light sources.

The chemistry usually used in such applications is nano-sized TiO2 (dioxide titanium), which attack every organic matter, including the textile fiber, and not only pollutants.

Perapret® AIR liq is produced using a patented Core Shell technology that partially surrounds the TiO2 molecules, solving the issue of fiber damage, and at the same time still allowing the photocatalytic process to work efficiently.

Therefore, the innovative Core Shell technology behind Perapret® AIR liq makes it possible to use the capabilities of nano-sized TiO2 also on organic based substances such as cotton, polyester, polyamide, viscose and any additional fiber and its blends.

In addition, the treatment is highly durable, as the product doesn’t self-consume and retains its performance over time.

Perapret® AIR liq is ideally suited for indoor applications, such as curtains, textile wall coverings, as well as cars and other automotive interiors, allowing to reduce air pollutants and airborne smells and thus improving overall air quality*.

The technology is at the core of CLEAN AIR, a new system that combines Perapret® AIR liq with other recent innovations such as Smartrepel® Hydro TS liq for PFC-free** durable water repellence, and Sanitized® T27-22 liq antimicrobial agent.

Having first collaborated on the iconoclastic SST Ammonite shoe as part of the brand’s Catalyst for Change program in 2020, adidas Originals and MRBAILEY have come together once again to ignite the start of an ongoing partnership that will see the innovative designer reimagine the Trefoil’s futuristic OZWORLD family of silhouettes.

MRBAILEY is the founder of innovative footwear design studio CONCEPTKICKS. London-based but nomadic by nature, the progressive creator’s practice specializes in an approach to footwear innovation that is distinctly speculative in thinking and undeniably boundary pushing in execution.

Using the biological research that informed the SST Ammonite silhouette as its starting point and informed by the ethos “nature is our greatest luxury”, MR BAILEY’s collaborative partnership with adidas Originals will explore the innate systems of design within the marine habitat. Building on the inherent wonder and beauty of aquatic lifeforms through design techniques, the partnership promises to challenge the artificial distinction between man made production and the natural world.