From the Sector

At the subsidiaries of the German Mahlo GmbH + Co KG, two branch managers are celebrating anniversaries this year. Alan Lavore, CEO of Mahlo America Inc., has been with the machine builder for 25 years. Michel Bruni, CEO of Mahlo Italia, has been part of the Mahlo family for 40 years.

Bruni began his career at Mahlo in 1981 as a service technician in the French branch Mahlo Ouest. Just one year later, he moved to Mahlo Italia, where he was appointed branch manager in 1996. He still holds this position today. Bruni is also sales manager for the Benelux countries, the Maghreb countries and Madagascar. The Mahlo Italia CEO's recipe for success includes expertise paired with experience and passion. To remain loyal to a company for so many years also testifies to a special relationship. "Then as now, I work with a dynamic and committed team. We also have a very good relationship with the employees of the parent company in Germany," says Bruni.

The culture and integrity with which business is conducted in the family-owned company were among the reasons why Mahlo America Inc. CEO Alan Lavore has also been with Mahlo for 25 years. "I just love working with all the great people at Mahlo." Lavore joined Mahlo in 1996 as a territory sales manager and took over as CEO in 2005. During this time, he drove the company's expansion from a textile specialist to a supplier for various production sectors such as film, paper, coating and converting or nonwovens.

International technology group ANDRITZ has received an order from Albaad Massuot Yitzhak Ltd. to supply a neXline wetlace hybrid line for their Dimona facilities, Israel. The line will produce a wide variety of pulp-based wet wipes and is scheduled for start-up during the third quarter 2023.

The state-of-the-art neXline wetlace hybrid is the perfect combination of inline drylaid and wetlaid web forming with hydroentanglement and drying, including quality control equipment and a Metris Industry 4.0 package. All components will be delivered by ANDRITZ and are designed to produce first-class fabrics, including biodegradable, carded-pulp and flushable/dispersible nonwovens for end uses as wipes.

Tobias Schäfer, Vice President Sales at ANDRITZ Nonwoven, comments: “Our innovative production line gives Albaad enormous flexibility in the production of wipes. In addition, the Metris digitalization package by ANDRITZ will provide Albaad with highly efficient and smart operation.”

Dan Mesika, CEO and President of Albaad, says: “We are dedicated to developing new products – such as eco-friendly, biodegradable wipes. As pioneering manufacturers of our Hydrofine® flushable wipes, we are committed to environmental sustainability. Thanks to the new ANDRITZ line, we will enlarge the product portfolio at our Dimona production site with innovative fabrics and high efficiency.

Gadi Choresh, President of the Nonwovens Division at Albaad, says: “Our knowledge and experience in drylaid and wetlaid technology, together with the state-of-the-art equipment supplied by ANDRITZ, will enable us to provide the market with natural-source nonwovens and the best answer to the market demand.”
 
Albaad is one of the world’s three largest wet wipe manufacturers and is committed to delivering excellent wipes for every need. The company runs world-leading production facilities on three continents, each equipped with the latest technologies. Albaad produces spunlace and flushable fabrics in its facilities as well as purchasing from other roll goods suppliers in order to support production of a wide variety of wipes.

• Hightech textiles for future-oriented construction projects

Building shells, bridges, staircases, façades ... construction projects are exposed to enormous mechanical loads. Often there are also considerable climatic or environmental influences. This has prompted the increasing use of fibre-reinforced materials in construction projects. After all, besides many other exciting properties, they offer high mechanical rigidity, low weight and excellent corrosion resistance.

Tapes, tubulars, sections and 3D woven textiles by vombaur form the perfect basis for these innovative building materials. The seamless round or shaped woven narrow textiles made of high-performance fibres are extremely loadable because they have neither seams nor welds – and therefore no undesirable breaking points. Their surface properties are identical over the entire length. In challenging tasks, composite textiles by vombaur offer a lightweight solution that is as reliable as it is durable.

Safe and durable solutions for challenging applications
The potential applications for lightweight components in the construction industry are as numerous as the project ideas of the planning and construction teams.
•    Ropes and tensioning elements made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP)
•    Reinforcement of building structures made of concrete, steel, wood or other materials
•    Sustainable restructuring of constructions and urban districts for bridges and buildings
•    CFC slats as reinforcements in case of repairs
•    (Filled) GRP pipes made of seamless round woven tubes by vombaur as columns/pillars
•    CFRP sections as steel girder substitutes
•    Hollow profiles with individually designed cross-sections
•    Glass fibre reinforced connecting elements for glazing to minimise expansion differences between the connecting element and the glass
•    Individual light wells

Implementing visions – with composite textiles by vombaur
As your development partner, vombaur facilitates innovative composites projects for challenging applications. In innovative and safety-sensitive industries such as automotive and aviation, chemical and plant engineering.  The composites experts at vombaur develop, create samples of and manufacture woven tapes and seamless round or shaped woven textiles by vombaur – in collaboration with the customer's enterprise development teams and individually for the respective projects. This is how novel and unique lightweight components made of high-performance textiles are created for visionary lightweight construction projects.

"Fibre-reinforced composites are the ideal material for future-oriented construction projects," explains Dr.-Ing. Sven Schöfer, Head of Development and Innovation at vombaur. "Their outstanding technical properties and design possibilities open up new and fascinating perspectives for construction projects. From building construction to civil engineering, from bridge construction to interior design. As an experienced development partner for sophisticated lightweight components, we at vombaur contribute our seamless solutions to these kinds of future-oriented projects."

„Your reliable partner in the nonwoven industry“ – the slogan speaks for itself: Oerlikon Nonwoven is exhibiting at the world’s leading nonwovens trade fair – the INDEX in Geneva, Switzerland (October 19-22, 2021) – with one of the market’s broadest portfolios. The Neumünster-based systems constructor will be focusing on market- and customer-oriented system solutions for filtration, hygiene, medical, geotextile and other industrial applications. Trade fair visitors can delve deep into the company’s comprehensive product and process know-how both live at trade fair stand no. 2314 and via the INDEX online platform.

• Nonwovens for filtration, insulation and sorption applications
• Comprehensive spunbond portfolio
• Quality Sized Right-Technology: spunmelt systems for the hygiene and medical market
• Wipes using Oerlikon's Phantom technology
• Airlaid technology for sustainable nonwovens

The pandemic shows the importance of single-use nonwovens for disinfectant and other wipe application. Therefore Truetzschler focuses on both high-performance solutions for an efficient production of disinfectant and biodegradable wipe materials.

It’s the classic combination of polyester and viscose fibers which combines exceptional good wipe characteristics with affordable raw material costs. For such high-speed carding/spunlacing processes Truetzschler Nonwovens offers production line configurations with three roller cards. Such an extended carding section not only enhances web quality but also fully utilizes AquaJet’s spunlacing power to deliver up to 4 tons of nonwovens per hour.

Line concepts for eco-friendly baby and body wipes are another focus at booth 1J20. The latest hot topic: Truetzschler‘s proven CP (carded/pulp) nonwoven line concepts with built-in flexibility. The machinery is able to process various pulp types for the wet-laid layer and various fiber types for the carded layer.

Topics at SINCE also are technologies for pulp-based WLS (wet-laid/spunlaced) nonwovens, cotton nonwovens and nonwovens made from 100% viscose or lyocell fibers. Truetzschler Card Clothing introduces a new generation of condenser wires.

International technology Group ANDRITZ will be presenting its innovative nonwovens production and textile solutions at ANEX/SINCE 2021 in Shanghai, China, from July 22 to 24, 2021. The product portfolio covers state-of-the-art nonwovens and textile production technologies such as air-through bonding, needlepunch, spunlace, spunbond, wetlaid/Wetlace, converting, textile finishing, airlay, recycling, and bast fiber processing.

Among the largest end-use markets for nonwoven products are materials for durable uses. Interior linings for cars, materials for construction, geotextiles, synthetic leathers for clothing and furniture, carpeting, filtration and many other industries rely on the use of nonwovens produced using the needlepunch method.

ANDRITZ Nonwoven’s processes play a pioneering role in the production of biodegradable materials. For many years, ANDRITZ has offered different processes, like spunlace, Wetlace and Wetlace CP, all with one goal in mind: Elimination of plastic components while maintaining the high quality of the desired product properties. Such processes achieve high performance entirely with plastic-free raw materials. The added benefit of using a blend of fibers, like wood pulp, short-cut cellulosic fibers, viscose, cotton, hemp, bamboo or linen, without chemical additives results in a 100% sustainable fabric, thus meeting customers’ needs exactly as well as supporting the strong tendency to move away from plastics and synthetics.

The latest development in this field is the ANDRITZ neXline wetlace CP line. This process combines the benefits of two forming technologies (inline drylaid and wetlaid web forming process) with bonding by hydroentanglement. Natural fibers, like pulp or viscose, can be processed smoothly and generate a high-performance and cost-efficient wipe that is fully biodegradable and plastic-free.