From the Sector

Faster and more cost-effective carbon fibre production - the technology of the start-up CarboScreen comes a good deal closer to this dream. The founders Dr. Musa Akdere, Felix Pohlkemper and Tim Röding from the Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) of RWTH Aachen University are using sensor technology to monitor carbon fibre production, thereby doubling the production speed from the current 15 to 30 m/min in the medium term and increasing turnover by up to €37.5 million per year and system. This ground-breaking development also impressed the jury at the ITMF at their Annual Conference in Keqiao, China, and was honoured with the ITMF StartUp Award 2023 on 6 November 2023.

Dr. Musa Akdere accepted the award on behalf of the CarboScreen founding team.

Carbon fibres can only develop their full potential if they are not damaged during production and further processing. Two types of fibre damage occur more frequently during fibre production: Superficial or mechanical damage to the fibres or damage to the chemical structure.

Both types of damage cannot be optimally detected by current means or only become apparent after production, to name just two examples. This leads to higher production costs. In an emergency, faulty production can even lead to plant fires. For this reason, and to ensure good production quality, the system is run at 15 m/min below its production capacity for safety reasons. However, 30 m/min or more would be possible. With the sensor-based online monitoring of CarboScreen, the production capacity can be doubled to 30 /min. This would lead to higher production, resulting in lower manufacturing costs and wider use of carbon fibres in mass markets such as automotive, aerospace and wind energy.

• Formula 1 cars will be cheaper in future

Carbon is the stuff Formula 1 cars are made of, at least the bodywork. But until now, carbon has been expensive. It can be produced more cheaply and efficiently if artificial intelligence monitors the production processes. A camera system combined with artificial intelligence automatically detects defects in the production of carbon fibres. This makes expensive manual inspection of the carbon fibres obsolete and the production price of the carbon fibre can be reduced in the long term.

For this idea, the young engineer Deniz Sinan Yesilyurt received the second prize of the "Digitalisation in Mechanical Engineering" Young Talent Award on 6 December.

Carbon fibres are sought after because of their good properties. They are very light - they weigh up to 50 percent less than aluminium. The combination of low weight and good mechanical properties offers many advantages. Especially in times of the energy transition, lightweight materials like carbon are more relevant than ever before. At the same time, carbon fibres are as resistant to external stresses as metals. However, achieving these good properties of carbon fibres is very complex.

Up to 300 individual fibre strands - bundles of individual fibres - have to be monitored simultaneously during production. If carbon fibres tear, it costs time and money to sort out the damaged fibres. This is just one example of various defects that can occur in the fibres during production.

Therefore, Deniz Sinan Yesilyurt attached a camera to the carbon fibre line that takes pictures of various fibre defects during production and collects them in a database. The artificial intelligence in the camera's information technology system evaluates the fibre defects by assigning the images to predefined reference defects. In doing so, it recognises various fibre defects with a classification accuracy of 99 per cent. The process can also be used in other areas that produce chemical fibres.

Deniz Sinan Yesilyurt received the prize from the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is a Bachelor's graduate at the Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) of RWTH Aachen University. The full title of his bachelor's thesis is: "Development of a Kl-supported process monitoring using machine learning to detect fibre damage in the stabilisation process". The VDMA awarded the prize to a total of four theses from different universities. The prize is awarded for outstanding theses and was offered in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The 2002 prize of the Walter Reiners Foundation of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association for the best Master's thesis in German textile mechanical engineering was awarded to a young engineer from the ITA Institut für Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University. The prize ceremony took place at Techtextil 2022 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Peter D. Dornier, Chairman of the Board of the Walter Reiners Foundation, presented the award at the VDMA Textile Machinery Association’s booth.

Felix Xaver Zerbes, M.Sc., was awarded the "Promotional Prize for the Best Master's Thesis of the German Textile Machinery Industry 2022", endowed with 3,500 EUR, for his master's thesis "Development and Construction of a Separation Unit for Weft Yarns in Air Jet Weaving".

The subject of the master's thesis was the development of a mechanism with which faulty sections in the weft yarn can be sorted out before they are woven into the textile. This way, both yarn-related weft defects and material defects can be drastically reduced. The prototype developed by Mr Zerbes shows how this can be done even during the ongoing weaving process without having to stop production. Due to its modular design, the yarn rejection unit can be retrofitted to many different types of air-jet weaving machines, which represents an enormous savings potential not only in Germany but in weaving mills all over the world.

On the occasion of the Techtextil fair in Frankfurt, the Chairman of VDMA’s Walter Reiners-Stiftung Foundation, Peter D. Dornier, has awarded prizes to seven successful young engineers. For the first time, the Foundation awarded two Sustainability Awards. They are awarded to academic works in which, for example, solutions for resource-saving products and technologies are developed.

A Sustainability Prize in the category Project Work, endowed with 3.000 euros was awarded to Simon Hoebel, TU Dresden, for his thesis on recycled thermoplastic fibres for composite components.
Marina Michel, TU Dresden, received a Sustainability Award in the category Master, worth 3.500 euros. The topic of her master thesis was the functionalisation of yarns for the filtration of micro- and nanoplastics from water.

A Promotion Prize in the category Project Work, endowed with 4.000 euros, was awarded to a student group from RWTH Aachen. The teamwork of Luis Gleissner, Leopold Habersbrunner, Frederic Olbrich and Frederik Schicks was the construction of a test rig for tests on oil-adsorbing textiles.

Felix Zerbes, RWTH Aachen, was awarded a Promotion Prize of 3.500 euros in the category Master. He developed a technical solution for air jet weaving to improve the quality of woven fabric.

Looking back, 2021 was a positive year for the Albstadt-based circular knitting machine and braiding machine manufacturer Mayer & Cie. After two tough years, sales exceeded Euro 100 million again last year, and the outlook for this year is promising, with production working at long-term full capacity in the circular knitting machine sector.

In order to maintain its market edge Mayer & Cie. continues to rely on digitisation of both its processes and its products. Substantial investment at its headquarters location, especially in machinery, is on the Mayer & Cie. agenda for 2022. In the years ahead a range of production machinery – lathes, gear cutting and grinding machines – is to be replaced at a scheduled cost running into low double-digit millions. Last year saw an investment in a robot-controlled laser hardening system for heat-treating machine components. The company passes an energy upgrade milestone these days with launching its new CHP cogeneration units.  
 
“Compared with 2020, our Group sales were up by about 40 per cent in 2021,” said Mayer & Cie. Managing Director Benjamin Mayer. After two difficult years in 2019 and 2020 the circular knitting machine manufacturer was able last year to restore sales to a stable level of about 103 million Euro. And it could have achieved an even better result. “Supply chain problems hampered production perceptibly,” the company’s managing director said. “In view of the order situation up to five per cent more might have been possible.” The Albstadt textile machinery manufacturer’s order position has stayed at a sound, high level since the fourth quarter of 2020, and orders in hand will already keep the circular knitting machine division busy until the end of the year, with orders coming in from all over the world, but especially, and with no change, from the company’s core markets Turkey, China and India.

The Management views with concern, however, the conflict in the Ukraine, which at first glance may not affect the sales market directly but might lead to general purchasing restraint in the capital goods sector that like the trade war between the United States and China, which began in 2018, would also affect Mayer & Cie. In addition, effects of the conflict such as high energy prices and interruptions in material supplies and logistics pose a genuine challenge in the further course of the year.

In the braiding machine division, the order position recovered in 2021. Sales of new machines and, especially, spare parts exceeded the 2020 figures significantly. Mayer & Cie. has once more won an award for its in-house and external digitisation measures as one of the most innovative German SMEs. The textile machinery manufacturer won a 2022 Top 100 award for its innovative processes in particular.

• 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.