From the Sector

The Swedish textile recycling company, Renewcell, has chosen AFRY as partner in order to digitalize production operations in their plants in Kristinehamn and Sundsvall, Sweden. AFRY will deliver an Industrial IT solution, containing AFRY MES and AFRY ProTAK, to manage production information and secure both high quality, as well as high overall efficiency in the production. The delivered solution will serve as a hub for all production process information.

Renewcell is a multi-award-winning textile recycling company based in Sweden. With the technology they have developed, the company has succeeded in recycling and regenerating textile fiber from old clothes to turn it back into fiber pulp. Renewcell has had a production site in Kristinehamn since 2017 and is now scaling up the production in their new production plant in Sundsvall. The new plant is expected to be operating during the first half of 2022. “Modern production and logistics require a high level of digitalization to meet the demands for, e.g., traceability, and therefore the systems and experience from AFRY will be very important to us,” says Ylva Stjernquist, Supply Chain Manager and Project Leader at Renewcell.

AFRY has a long experience in Industrial IT and will now deliver the two leading, closely integrated digital solutions for production management to Renewcell. The AFRY MES (Manufacturing Execution System) is a highly advanced digital information system that connects, monitors, and controls the complex production systems and data flows of the production processes. AFRY ProTAK is a digital tool that measures the effectiveness of a plant’s production machine performance. The system gathers information from different sources (e.g., DCS, MES, Maintenance) and combines that with the operators’ notes to calculate or present Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE), which will lead to optimized production and increased profitability.

Together these tools will improve traceability and secure a high production efficiency by integrating data from all production systems and equipment. “We are focusing on improving sustainability within process industries, and it is therefore an honor to be part of Renewcell’s textile recycling through a full-scale digitalized solution. Our modern and competitive digital solution will definitely bring added value to these types of processes,” says David Andersson, Business Segment Manager Digitalization, AFRY Process Industries Sweden.  

AFRY MES and AFRY ProTAK will be installed to both Kristinehamn and Sundsvall plants. The installation is planned to be up and running during Q2 2022.

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL) reported a strong 3Q 2021 performance amid record production volumes. The company maintained its positive outlook for the rest of the year and 2022, noting caution as headwinds including higher energy prices and supply chain disruptions weigh against resurgent consumer demand.

IVL reported EBITDA of US$478 million in Q3 versus US$552 million in the previous quarter and US$240 million a year earlier. Production volumes reached 3.73 million metric tons, a record, as the global recovery drove consumer demand for IVL’s products.

As the global economy recovers from the pandemic, consumer appetite and increasing Brent crude oil prices are testing supply chains and driving a commodity boom, with manufacturers running at full capacity. This has driven increases in freight prices and a shortage of materials.

Still, IVL posted a solid YTD performance, ending the first nine months of 2021 with EBITDA of US$ 1,512 million, up 123% YoY. The Integrated Oxides & Derivatives (IOD) segment will start to reap the full benefits of the hot commissioning of the Lake Charles gas cracker (IVOL) in Q4 and beyond, as well as continued advantaged shale gas economics.

In Q3, Project Olympus, the company’s cost saving and business transformation project, achieved US$63 million in efficiency gains, and is on track to achieve a total US$610 million of savings by 2023. IVL also implemented enhanced disclosures in governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, and launched a comprehensive financial policy and governance structure to accelerate environmentally driven projects.

IVL strengthened its Indorama Management Council (IMC) – the company’s highest operational management committee – by rotating experienced executives and adding the COOs of the Fibers and Integrated Oxides & Derivatives (IOD) segments. The appointments will help build the segments into self-sustaining organizations while also rotating expertise across the IMC.

3Q 2021 Performance Summary

• Consolidated Revenue of US$ 3,867M, an increase of 9% QoQ and 50% YoY
• EBITDA of US$ 478M in Q3 versus US$552 million, a decrease of 13% QoQ and an increase of 99% YoY
• Reported annualized EPS of THB 4.53 and core annualized EPS of THB 4.09

Penn Textile Solutions GmbH is one of the world's leading manufacturers of elastic fabrics for under-wear, corsetry, sportswear and swimwear, as well as highly functional textiles for technical applications. The fully integrated company with its own warping, circular knitting, warp knitting, dyeing and finishing facilities currently employs around 150 people.

Penn has long relied on Mahlo
Penn has relied on the cooperation with Mahlo for years. The manufacturer of measuring, control and automation systems for web-shaped goods has decades of experience in the field of process control. Until the summer of 2020, the textile manufacturer had been using a basis weight measurement system in the stenter frame outlet with beta radiation and manual control. "When the krypton preparations had passed their half-life, we had to make a decision: Exchange or replace the system right away", says operations manager Franz Schütte. They sat down with Mahlo representatives and looked for the best solution. Since the systems had already reached a high operating age and the measurement was limited to the basis weight, a new concept was decided upon. "Mahlo made us the best price-performance offer." The new system should be even more efficient and easier to operate for the special makes..

The compression zones of the functional fabric create corresponding distortions within the textile surface in its raw state, which have to be smoothed out in the fixing process. This work is now taken over by a process control system. The Mahlo Famacont PMC-15 with two measuring points automatically controls the leading of the stenter frame by continuously and contactlessly determining the mesh density. In addition, the Patcontrol PCS-20 process control system ensures that the dimensions of the different zones are recorded and also automatically controlled. "The previous beta-radiation facility was not able to collect this kind of data," explains the Penn operations manager. Another important aspect for the textile manufacturer: the complete and costly radiation protection is no longer necessary with the new systems.

Despite very good experience with Mahlo in the past, every change naturally involves a risk. Penn did not have to rely on theoretical considerations, however, but carried out tests in advance with appropriate sample material in the Mahlo test laboratory. The results convinced the decision-makers.

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.

Kornit Digital Ltd. announced the release of its Kornit Presto MAX system for sustainable on-demand production of apparel and other textile goods. The new system will make its live debut at Kornit Fashion Week Los Angeles + Industry 4.0 Event, which the company is hosting November 2-5 to showcase technology innovations, partnerships, and proven strategies driving the business case for sustainable, on-demand production of fashion and textile goods worldwide.

Kornit Presto MAX is the first digital print system to offer white printing on colored fabrics, enhancing decoration capabilities for dark colored fabrics more broadly. It is the only single-step solution for direct-to-fabric printing, delivering the highest quality and softest feel with brilliant whites and brighter neon colors. The system is ready to incorporate future iterations and evolutions of XDi technology—3D decorative applications to produce threadless embroidery, high-density, vinyl, screen transfer, and other innovative effects.

Kornit Presto MAX is compatible with natural fabrics, synthetics, and blends, and includes advanced algorithms for smart autonomous calibration, to deliver high-quality results with short cycle times and minimal manual interruptions or defects. The system was devised for compatibility with the KornitX global fulfillment ecosystem to enable anywhere, anytime production, supporting a true distributed production model that fulfills nearer the end consumer, eliminating time and logistical waste from the experience while empowering brands to ensure quality and consistency across all systems and production sites.

Kornit Presto MAX provides the cornerstone of a smart, efficient, sustainable EcoFactory that empowers producers to cover and integrate more parts of the process, from design to finished product, to decrease their carbon footprint, use minimum manpower, and generate less waste. This means eliminating excessive time, labor, and shipping throughout the value chain, enabling proximity production to meet the accelerated demands of a web-driven global marketplace—revealing new sales channels and clever business models to grow the business long-term.

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”.

For the second time the Innovative Textile and Apparel Show opens its virtual fairground this year. For the second time, Mahlo takes the chance to get in contact with customers from all over the world. Mahlo will present the latest systems and solutions for efficient and high-quality textile production and finishing, with the focus on process optimisation in a digital environment.

In the textile industry, Mahlo is known for high-quality automatic weft straighteners, whether roller or needle straighteners, whether for the finest textiles or heavy fabrics - interested parties can find out about the right equipment for their specific requirements.

Process control systems such as the Patcontrol PCS for pattern recognition and the Famacont PMC for controlling weft and stitch course density also contribute to textile production and finishing. Mahlo wants to support manufacturers in optimising their production processes and thus also the end product in a cost-efficient way.

Solutions for technical textiles and nonwovens
Support in the production process is also available for technical textiles and nonwovens. The focus here is on the Qualiscan QMS quality measurement system. The modularly designed system, which consists of sensors and measuring frames, measures, logs and controls critical parameters such as basis weight, moisture or layer thickness across the entire fabric width. Depending on the application and task, different measuring methods are used for this purpose.

• Composites in the construction industry - The lightweight construction material of the future

Building with fibre-reinforced materials opens up completely new possibilities. In terms of engineering, design, and organisation. This is due, on the one hand, to the excellent properties of fibre-reinforced materials (FRM) and, on the other hand, to the fact that the material – unlike wood or brick, for example – is not machined or processed for its use, but custom-produced.

Excellent properties – in terms of engineering, design, and organisation
Fibre-composite materials offer a whole range of technical properties for innovative and sustainable building:
•    High mechanical rigidity
•    Low weight
•    High corrosion resistance
•    Low material fatigue
•    Low heat transfer coefficient of the plastic matrix
•    Resistance to frost and de-icing salt
•    Good draping capability

In addition, fibre composites offer numerous design options for novel and exceptional new building and maintenance projects:
•    Unique variety of shapes
•    Different structures of the textiles
•    Large spectrum of colours and colour combinations
•    Translucency of the plastic matrix
Thanks to these properties, composites can be used to produce coloured, phosphorescent, thermochromic or – through the use of LEDs or light-conducting fibres permanently integrated into the matrix – luminescent components.

In addition, there are organisational benefits for planning, construction and maintenance work with fibre-reinforced materials:
•    Easier handling and assembly of the far lighter and more flexible components – compared with steel, concrete or wood
•    Faster installation
•    Shorter construction site times in road and bridge maintenance
•    Shorter delivery times
•    Ability to integrate electronic monitoring systems

Individual composite textiles – for every lightweight engineering project
The composites experts at vombaur develop and manufacture woven tapes and seamless round or shaped woven textiles from carbon, glass, flax or other high-performance fibres on special weaving lines for individually specified round and shaped woven textiles – and can therefore offer you the best possible fibre base for every lightweight construction project.

"Regardless of whether it's a new construction or a renovation project, a façade design, a bridge or a staircase – as your development partner for composite textiles, we have plenty of experience with composites for demanding tasks," emphasises Dr.-Ing. Sven Schöfer, Head of Development and Innovation at vombaur. "We develop, create samples and manufacture woven tapes and seamless round or shaped woven textiles – in collaboration with the customer 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 projects.

Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of all energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the EU. Improving energy efficiency in buildings therefore has a key role to play in achieving the ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 set out in the European Green Deal. A new briefing from the European Pultrusion Technology Association (EPTA) discusses how composite materials can help improve the thermal performance of the building envelope to satisfy increasingly stringent energy efficiency regulations. The EPTA report, Opportunities for pultruded composites in energy-efficient buildings, explains how pultruded profiles offer durable,  low maintenance solutions which can help reduce both operational and embodied carbon emissions from buildings in applications including energy-saving windows, thermal break connectors, and solar shading and cladding systems.   

“Economic and population growth mean energy demand is set to rise, making energy efficiency measures even more critical,“ comments Dr Elmar Witten, Secretary of EPTA. “Regulations and standards will continue to push for lower U-values for building elements, driving the increase use of materials and designs which minimise operational carbon emissions. Pultruded profiles offer an attractive combination of properties for designers of energy-efficient buildings – low thermal conductivity to minimise thermal bridging, together with excellent mechanical performance, durability, and design freedom.“  
 
It is estimated that today, roughly 75% of the EU building stock is energy inefficient, meaning that a large part of the energy used goes to waste. This energy loss can be minimised by improving existing buildings and striving for smart solutions and energy efficient materials for new builds. Areas of focus include improving glazing systems, better insulation of envelope components, and reducing unwanted solar heat gains. The low thermal conductivity of composites is being exploited in components and structures that help to minimise energy required for space conditioning. 

• Energy-saving windows and doors
• Thermal break connectors and structural assemblies
• Solar shading systems
• Rainscreen cladding and curtain wall facades
• Building a sustainable future

Global energy consumption reached a record high in 2019, following a 40-year trend for rapidly increasing energy demand that was only halted by the Coronavirus pandemic. It’s estimated that more than 80 % of this energy is still generated from fossil fuels that produce CO2 emissions and contribute to climate change. Renewable energy offers a solution to this problem, but saving energy whenever possible is an even more effective approach. That are the motives for Trützschler to develop the intelligent card TC 19i, which sets a new benchmark for energy-efficient carding.

The intelligent Trützschler card TC 19i features the unique T-GO gap optimizer, which continuously and automatically monitors and adjusts the carding gap to an ideal position during production. Innovative drive- and air technology further reduce energy consumption of the TC 19i.

The most energy-intensive elements in a carding machine are the drive, the dust suction process and the compressed air system. Permanent suction is needed to remove dust and cotton waste in key places. Smart optimization of these areas has made the intelligent card TC 19i a benchmark for energy efficiency in carding because it uses less electricity, lower suction pressure and less compressed air than other machines, while providing the highest production rates currently available on the market.

In a head-to-head comparison between the TC 19i and a high-performance card from a competitor, the TC 19i consumed at least 10 % less energy per kilogram of material produced when manufacturing rotor yarn from a cotton and cotton waste mix. The compared energy values included electric power consumption and energy required for suction and compressed air and were measured in both cards at the same production of 180 kg/h. A 10 % reduction in energy per kilogram of sliver produced, as proven here by TC 19i, can have a significant impact on a spinning mill’s profitability; annual savings worth a five-digit sum are frequently possible, depending on factors such as the output of the mill. The customer trial also showed TC 19i’s excellent reliability at the customer’s usual production rate of 180 kg/h, and even demonstrated stable performance at 300 kg/h in the same application. Because the TC 19i with T-GO gap optimizer realizes maximum production rates at no compromise in quality, manufacturers can reduce their energy demand and investment costs drastically: Less machines are needed to achieve the desired output, and energy consumption per production is reduced.

This improvement was made possible by a long and sometimes challenging innovation process involving mathematical models of air flows, as well as flow simulations and prototypes. By combining the final flowoptimized parts in the TC 19i, Trützschler’s experts have developed a card that operates with suction pressure of just -740 Pa and with an air requirement of only 4200 m³/h. This translates into 40 % less energy demand for air technology compared to the latest high-performance competitor model.