From the Sector

Denim is timeless - jeans have become an essential part of modern life. On warm days, they can make you sweat. Outlast Technologies GmbH is changing that - by making denim that helps you sweat less and feel more comfortable throughout the day.

After intensive research and development, Outlast proudly introduces its temperature regulation technology into denim fabrics - without compromising the rugged authenticity and durability denim is known for. The result is a smarter, more comfortable denim that adapts to the body's temperature, no matter the season or activity.

The innovation lies in embedding natural wax directly into the fibers before the denim is woven - creating intelligent fabrics that interact with your body. When it’s warm, these fibers absorb excess body heat and store it, helping to reduce sweating and keep you feeling comfortably balanced. As temperatures cool or your activity level decreases, the stored warmth is gradually released - helping to prevent chills.

Achieving this level of functionality, however, was no easy task. The challenge was to ensure that the temperature-regulating effect could withstand the intense wash and finish treatments typical in denim production - all while preserving the look, feel, and durability expected of high-quality jeans.

To meet these demands, Outlast found the perfect partner in AGI, the renowned denim producer from Pakistan. With its deep expertise in denim manufacturing, AGI played a key role in refining the integration of temperature regulation technology - resulting in denim products that are highly attractive to both brands and end consumers alike.

Equally appealing to end users is the lasting performance of the innovation: the natural wax is embedded inside the fiber itself. This means the temperature-regulating function does not wash out or diminish over time. Unlike surface treatments, the technology remains effective throughout the entire life cycle of the garment.

Finishing machinery specialist Monforts will exhibit at the upcoming Febratex textile machinery exhibition taking place in Blumenau, Brazil, from August 20-23, along with Uniferro, its new regional partner.

This new alliance follows the retirement of Herbert Erdmann of the service agency Euro Texteis, who has worked with Monforts over more than 30 years to secure a leading position in the region for Montex stenter dryers, Thermex dyeing ranges and associated finishing technology.

With offices in Sao Paulo and Ceara and sub-agents across Brazil, Uniferro has been active in the textile industry for over 50 years.

coaTTex
At Febratex, Monforts will introduce its latest coaTTex coating unit exclusively dedicated to air knife and knife-over-roller coating. For single-sided application with paste or foam, the versatile coater is suitable for both incorporation into existing finishing ranges as well as installation with new Monforts Montex stenter systems.

A wide range of coatings can be applied to fabrics for providing functions such as waterproofing, liquid and gas protection and breathability, in addition to foam lamination and black-out coating.

Denim hub
Brazil remains a buoyant hub for textile manufacturing with a particular stength in the denim dyeing and finishing sector and many Monforts Thermex hotflue dyeing systems are already operational in the region, reaping the benefits of the Econtrol® process.

Econtrol® is a continuous process for the dyeing of woven cotton and cellulosic fabrics, especially denim, in which reactive dyestuffs are fixed into the fabric in a one-step dyeing and drying process with a controlled combination of steam and air. The entire pad-dry process takes just two-to-three minutes.

“Differentiation is the key in the highly-competitive denim fabrics industry, whether through the successful incorporation of new fibres, accommodating new fabric constructions or exploring the many options for how to treat them at the finishing stage, to gain a market advantage,” says says Monforts Regional Sales Manager Achim Gesser. “Our lines allow users to be extremely versatile and respond quickly to market demand, while also allowing very short production runs.”

Because finishing is a particularly energy-intensive part of the textile production chain, it is exactly where convincing results can be achieved, he adds, and Monforts has developed a wide range of energy-saving. These included a range of heat recovery systems, such as the Universal Energy Tower and the ECO Booster. Both can also be retrofitted to existing ranges to make production more resource-efficient and economical, yet without having to invest in a new machine.

“Energy costs tend to be high in Brazil and can account for up to 70% of production costs for our customers, so there is great demand for ways of saving money,” says Gesser. “Cutting energy usage also helps in terms of global warming and reducing carbon footprint, of course, so these latest technologies are a win-win for fabric finishers. As we look forward to a promising partnership with Uniferro in Brazil, we would like to extend our thanks and best wishes for the future to Herbert Erdmann for his hard work over the years.”

Graniteville Specialty Fabrics has set new standards by challenging the traditional pad finishing process. With Baldwin Technology’s spray finishing technology, Graniteville Specialty Fabrics has been able to increase production efficiency, and minimize chemical and water waste.
 
Based in Graniteville, South Carolina, Graniteville Specialty Fabrics produces coatings and coated fabrics that are resistant to water, fire, UV and weather for the military, marine and tent markets. The installation of Baldwin’s TexCoat™ G4 is part of a facility upgrade to maximize production efficiency and capacity in the durable water-repellent finishing and coating line to meet growing customer demand for advanced engineered products.

With sustainability benefits, tracking and process control, and Industry 4.0 integration, the TexCoat™ G4 provides high-quality fabric finishing, with no chemistry waste, as well as minimal water and energy consumption. This system utilizes non-contact precision-spray technology, ensuring precise finishing coverage with the exact amount of chemistry. Changeovers (pad bath emptying, cleaning and refilling) are reduced, resulting in substantial chemical conservation and increased productivity.

HeiQ introduces a 100% biobased and long-lasting cosmetic finishing technology for textiles to the market. The newest addition to the HeiQ portfolio harnesses the power of active probiotics and selected prebiotics to enhance the skin microbiome, turning the human’s largest organ into the best-looking one.

HeiQ Skin Care is a synbiotic textile finish aimed at providing a balanced microbiome for glowing skin, even after repeated use and washing of textiles. Unlike conventional products, HeiQ Skin Care utilizes slow-release prebiotics and probiotics seamlessly integrated into a biobased textile matrix, enriching the skin's microbiome diversity, and offering long-lasting cosmetic benefits.

The synergistic combination of prebiotics and probiotics, known as synbiotics, delivers a soothing cosmetic skin treatment while relaxing, working, or sleeping. Probiotics not only restore and improve the skin's natural balance but also enhance its self-repair capabilities. Synbiotics promote skin renewal, rebalancing, and improved appearance, reducing the signs of aging and establishing a favorable environment for the skin's natural repair mechanisms.

A second skin that takes care of the first
The skin, the largest organ in human body, is home to a diverse community of microorganisms called the skin microbiome. It plays a crucial role in maintaining good skin condition, acting as a protective barrier against harmful agents. However, various factors, such as hormones, diet, smoking, environmental exposures, and excessive UV radiation, can disrupt its balance, leading to skin conditions like rashes, acne, psoriasis, rosacea, skin irritation, redness, eczema, and odor. Maintaining a balanced skin microbiome is essential for preserving skin integrity.

HeiQ Skin Care is suitable for all textile fibers, both natural and synthetic, and can be applied to all textile items that come in direct contact with the skin. This versatility makes it an ideal choice for daily use- at work, during sports, leisure activities, or as bedding items like bed sheets and pillows.

Intensive wear trials conducted during the development stage have proven the consistent release of synbiotics (prebiotics and probiotics) onto the skin, creating conditions to foster a well-balanced microbiome.

Baldwin Technology Company Inc. will showcase its TexCoat™ G4 precision spray finishing system at ITMA Asia 2023 (November 19-23, National Exhibition and Convention Center, Shanghai). ITMA Asia participants can stop by and see Baldwin’s wide array of TexCoat G4-applied fabric samples from textile mills around the world and experience what precision finishing feels like while learning how the technology eliminates chemistry waste on changeover, saves water, and achieves faster speeds through the stenter frame and relaxed dryer.
 
Baldwin’s team will be available to discuss how the company’s technology can meet the textile supply chain’s sustainability and carbon footprint goals while improving performance and saving money. In the context of a cost-sensitive global economy and an increased focus by brands, consumers and regulatory agencies on sustainability, customers are placing a premium on sustainability-advantage textile production.

TexCoat G4’s non-contact spray technology offers numerous advantages compared to outdated finishing-chemistry application methods. TexCoat G4 processes a wide range of low-viscosity water-based chemicals, such as durable water-repellents –  including PFAS-free, softeners, anti-microbials, easy-care and flame retardants. The company's technology uses the same chemicals as found in traditional pad baths with no special auxiliaries required.

Testimonial videos from Pincroft Dyeing and Print Works and Graniteville Specialty Fabrics along with a video highlighting Baldwin’s partnership with North Carolina State University will also be screened at their stand.

The identification of profitable new niche markets has been central to the success and continuous expansion of Germany’s Dolinschek, a leading knitting, dyeing and finishing specialist, located in Burladingen in Baden-Württemberg.

“There is so much more to textiles than just clothing,” says Theo Dolinschek, who runs the company with his brother Erwin. “We handle many different technical materials such as automotive components, geotextiles and wallcoverings, but also those for more unusual applications such as inlays for extractor hoods, cut protection fabrics and even wool felts which are employed as insulation on wind turbines.

“We have also recently started to produce compression stockings in a variety of colours, because not everyone wants them black, beige or skin coloured. The most important product areas for us now are in sportswear, corsetry and lingerie, as well as orthopedic and medical products, workwear and protective clothing, but in addition, many other technical applications.”

The Dolinschek brothers moved their business to the historic site of the former Ambrosius Heim textile company in Burladingen in 2001 in order to expand. At the time, the company – founded by their father in 1980 as a textile wholesaler before moving into dyeing – employed just 13 people. Within a year, the company had bought additional space at the site.

Now, with Theo in charge of technology and sales, and Erwin responsible for production, the company employs almost 100 people and operates on an integrated site of 35,000 square metres.

In 2005, a laminating department was established by the company and since 2012 investment in knitting machines has been ongoing.

“The further we went into vertical integration, the more of our own products we were able to position on the market and so we were also able to make ourselves more independent,” says Theo. “We have continued to develop and today we can produce high-quality fabrics for many fields, with 42 knitting machines, 36 dyeing machines, three stenter frames and many other production and processing machines.”

Dolinschek has also developed its own proprietary TMG dyeing machines which have subsequently been successfully sold to many other companies all over the world. There are currently 11 of these machines  in operation at the Burladingen site and around 45 installed at other companies.

For finishing technology, however, the company relies on Monforts, and has installed a new seven chamber Montex TwinAir stenter range with a Montex®Coat coating unit in knife execution, enabling the coating of dimensionally stable knitted fabrics with polyurethane or acrylate. Another unique feature is the Teflon-coated (non-stick) transportation belt through the system.

The Montex line is also equipped with integrated heat recovery and exhaust gas purification to ensure the most resource-efficient processing available on the market. The exhaust air goes from the Monforts heat recovery system into an existing air/water heat recovery system and then into an electrostatic precipitator.

Highly-intuitive Monforts Qualitex visualisation software allows all machine functions and process parameters to be assessed and controlled easily.

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.

Baldwin Technology Company Inc. has announced the installation of its TexCoat G4 finishing system at Graniteville Specialty Fabrics, a recognized leader in the production of specialty coatings and coated fabrics. With Baldwin’s cost-efficient and highly sustainable spray finishing technology, Graniteville Specialty Fabrics has been able to increase production efficiency, and minimize chemical and water waste.

Based in Graniteville, South Carolina, Graniteville Specialty Fabrics produces coatings and coated fabrics that are resistant to water, fire, UV and weather for the military, marine and tent markets, and others. The company excels in developing and sourcing custom coatings, and creating specialized technical solutions to meet specific, and often unique, end-user requirements. The installation of Baldwin’s TexCoat G4 is part of a major facility upgrade to maximize production efficiency and capacity in the durable water-repellent finishing and coating line to meet growing customer demand for advanced engineered products.

With extensive sustainability benefits, unprecedented tracking and process control, and Industry 4.0 integration, the TexCoat G4 provides consistently high-quality fabric finishing, with no chemistry waste, as well as minimal water and energy consumption. This system utilizes non-contact precision-spray technology, ensuring precise finishing coverage with the exact amount of chemistry for reaching the optimal performance of the fabric. Changeovers (pad bath emptying, cleaning and refilling) are significantly reduced, resulting in substantial chemical conservation and increased productivity.

• High performing face stock paper delivers convincing results for multiple applications
• Sappi product portfolio of face stock papers ist being expanded with Parade Label SG from its Gratkorn site

Sappi, manufacturer of numerous packaging and speciality papers for a wide range of markets, is launching the Parade Label SG, a one-side coated face stock label paper that excels in terms of properties such as printability, opacity and stiffness, as well as with its many options for further processing.

• Semi-gloss face stock paper with high-quality performance characteristics
• Suitable for a wide range of applications, e.g. labels for food, non-food, HABA and VIP
• Available in 77, 78 and 80 gsm
• Manufactured in Gratkorn, one of the largest and ultra-modern paper mills in Europe

Sappi offers an extensive range of base papers for wet-glue and self-adhesive labels. With its new Parade Label SG, the company is now introducing a one-side coated, semi-gloss face stock label paper that is approved for direct contact with food and that complies with DIN EN 71 for toy safety. The range of applications includes labels for food, non-food, beverages and health and beauty aids (HABA), as well as for logistics and variable information printing (VIP) due to its excellent thermal transfer printability.

The fibre-based face stock solution guarantees high-quality results in printing and finishing, through the entire production and converting chain. It features high stiffness and resilience, so the label will not be damaged and will fit accurately even after labelling.

Sappi invests in customer proximity
To ensure 100 percent availability and fast delivery of its label papers, Sappi has proactively positioned itself for the future and set the course for reliable production and seamless supply chains – with its plants in Alfeld, Carmignano and Condino. The plant in Gratkorn, where Sappi has invested in new technical equipment, has now been added to the list. With modern production facilities, from paper machines to finishing technology, as well as extensive expertise in the production of coated papers, the site has everything in place to ensure top-class products. Available capacity is being expanded gradually to include the production of Parade Label papers alongside existing graphical grades.

Because of the central location of Sappi’s production site in Gratkorn, Parade Label SG can be supplied quickly throughout Europe and beyond. The short transportation distances save greenhouse emissions and protect the environment; shorter production cycles then enable good availability and fast supply. Parade Label SG is certified for direct food contact and available in grammages of 77, 78 and 80 g/m². Sappi can provide Parade Label SG with FSC or PEFC certificates on request.

Sappi will be presenting its new developments in the field of label papers, among others, at the upcoming LabelExpo Europe in Brussels in April 2022.

• Alchemie Technology asks world leaders to cut energy and CO2 emissions from global fashion industry

Alchemie Technology, innovator of low energy, waterless, textile dyeing and finishing technology, is calling on COP26 leaders to support the global fashion industry in the adoption of new manufacturing technology, which will dramatically reduce carbon emissions and fashion’s impact on climate change.

While the fashion industry is one of the most polluting on the planet, second only to oil and gas, and greenhouse gas emissions from textile dyeing at around 3% of global emissions outweigh that of all international flights and maritime shipping combined, it is an industry that can also reduce CO2 emissions the fastest, just by changing the way it dyes fabrics.  

Fabric dyeing is the most polluting part of fashion and activewear manufacturing, involving industrial scale dye baths and huge amounts of dye chemicals, steam, electrical power, and consequent high CO2 emissions.  Repeated washing of the dyed fabric, required to remove dye residue, is responsible for 20% of the world’s wastewater pollution and excess dye is discharged into waterways, affecting the health of some of the world’s poorest communities. In more regulated areas, water pollution is reduced through reliance on energy intensive water treatment plants.

However, an environmental step change can be achieved by adopting new digital technology that can dye fabrics with an 85% reduction in energy consumption and a dramatic 95% reduction of the 1.3 trillion litres of water currently used by the industry each year.

For example, dyeing one polyester shirt using current methods generates 4.5 litres of wastewater and produces 0.17 Kg of CO2, compared to low energy digital technology, which uses less than 0.2 litres of water and reduces carbon emissions to 0.03 Kg.  Multiply these numbers by the billions of garments dyed each year and the scale of the environmental problem, if nothing changes, is clear to see.  Equally, the amount by which the textile industry can improve its carbon footprint is dramatic and can be done quickly if action is taken now.
Dr Simon Kew, Managing Director, Alchemie Technology comments “The technology now exists to enable the textile industry to make a significant contribution to helping meet the world’s net zero, climate change goals. But it requires the support of governments through investment, grants and legislation and the critical effort of brands, and their manufacturing supply chains to work together to make the change.”