From the Sector

Huntsman Textile Effects and Phong Phu International (PPJ) today announced a strategic partnership agreement that aims to promote PPJ’s growth in Vietnam as a manufacturer of  textiles and garments for brands and retailers all over the world.
Vietnam-based PPJ will leverage technical support from Huntsman Textile Effects to enhance its manufacturing processes across its denim/twill and knit mills, and develop new products that deliver sustainability along with advanced performance, protection and comfort.

The development of workwear and textile for the American, European and Japan markets  will be a key project for the two partners. They will use advanced Huntsman Textile Effects barrier solutions such as PHOBOL®, PHOBOTEX® and ZELAN™, along with other finishing effects.Huntsman Textile Effects will additionally support PPJ to promote its Sinnika Fabric collection, leveraging Huntsman’s advanced dyeing technology and finishing effects to deliver high-value market-focused solutions to brands and retailers.

The new agreement strengthens a  relationship that has already seen PPJ develop denim, knitwear and woven fabrics and garments using Huntsman Textile Effects technologies including AVITERA® SE dyes, NOVACRON® Atlantic dyes and High IQ® intelligent effects.
 

Staggered in terms of timing and with varying magnitude, the global spread of coronavirus is impacting the development of the regional economies in the core markets of the Manmade Fibers segment of the Swiss Oerlikon Group.
The sales markets for manmade fiber systems and equipment have been primarily located in China, India and Turkey for many years now. Together, these markets – above all China – make up the lion’s share of the project landscape at Oerlikon Manmade Fibers. And this is paying positive dividends at the moment. Because the production facilities of the major manmade fiber manufacturers in
China have been systematically fired up again over the past few weeks, with capacity utilization increasing consistently.

Going against the flow
The Segment CEO, Georg Stausberg explains the reason: “Long before the coronavirus situation developed, the major manmade fiber manufacturers in China had decided to reverse-integrate their production chains to include petrochemicals in order to expand their portfolios with targeted investments, to reduce their dependence on a ,single product’, to optimize their costs and ultimately to acquire greater control over margins in a global volume business”.
Similar processes and decisions – albeit not on the same scale as in China – have also
been detected at the large manmade fiber manufacturers in India and Turkey. Even though businesses in India and Turkey are presently still temporarily severely impacted by the coronavirus situation, their long-term commitment cannot however be questioned, as the company-internally-agreed plans will be systematically implemented moving forward.

Long-term investments of global market players
All this has recently resulted in increased demand for spinning and texturing systems – just like those supplied by total solutions provider Oerlikon Manmade Fibers with its
Oerlikon Barmag, Oerlikon Neumag and Oerlikon Nonwoven product brands.
“The investments in petrochemical systems are based on long-term strategic considerations and are resulting – even during the coronavirus pandemic – neither in short- and medium-term economic dips, nor in changed customer behavior. (...)”, states Segment-CEO Georg Stausberg.
As a result of Oerlikon Manmade Fibers delving into the digital age years ago, the segment has experienced the intensive and short-term benefit from all the measures, in part also in its processing of customer projects.

Within the context of a globally-networked textile industry, online services have become essential for maintenance, modernization and original parts procurement processes for machines and systems.
Here, the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment optimized the myOerlikon.com service portal for the products and services of its Oerlikon Barmag, Oerlikon Neumag and Oerlikon Nonwoven brands, making it more userfriendly. It allows customers to now access tailored services in nine different languages and around the clock.

Each and every machine park usually has numerous associated documents, ranging from manuals, circuit diagrams and 3D drawing-supported original parts catalogs, all the way through to operating instructions and final documents. myOerlikon.com bundles this information, while also providing users with additional communications on potential machine modernizations and upgrades and on special offers tailored to the respective production system.

Real security during virtual shopping
At the same time, users can access the myOerlikon.com e-commerce platform, which operates in parallel.
Customers can not only place orders here, they can also send online inquiries to Oerlikon, view prices and warehouse stocks and track inquiries,
quotations and orders already made or placed, among many other things. As a result of online access to original parts catalogs for the respective customer machines and systems, erroneous orders can be avoided.
Log-in is secure for users, as are all transactions carried out using the platform. With this, Oerlikon is implementing real security for all virtual purchases. All data exchanged is fundamentally
encrypted and hence protected against unauthorized access.

Textile and nonwoven associations issued a joint statement today urging federal, state and local governments to deem textile and nonwoven manufacturing facilities as “essential” when drafting “Shelter in Place” orders in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Our associations recognize the serious challenges our elected officials, health administrators, and others are facing when issuing orders to protect communities across the country and we understand the necessity for leaders to enforce a ‘Shelter in Place” order or quarantine orders.

Our members make a broad range of inputs and finished products used in an array of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical nonwoven/textile supplies, including surgical gowns, face masks, antibacterial wipes, lab coats, blood pressure cuffs, cotton swabs and hazmat suits. These items are vital to the government’s effort to ramp up emergency production of these critical supplies.

If workers who produce these goods are not granted an “essential” exemption from “Shelter in Place” and other quarantine orders to go to their manufacturing and distribution facilities, it will cause major disruptions in the availability of these goods. This will create significant hardship to healthcare providers and consumers across the country who depend on steady and stable supplies of these critical items.

We are asking the administration and state and local authorities to provide greater certainty and clarity for our companies and employees and ask for a clear exclusion of our manufacturing operations from “Shelter in Place” orders as the textile and nonwoven products that we make in the U.S. play an essential role in mitigating the shortages of critical supplies. Such a designation will help us avoid disruptions of vital goods and services during this challenging time.

Anglo Recycling Technology is on course to deliver no less than a million of its special nonwoven mats for hydroponically growing herbs to a major customer in the Middle East this year. The Growfelt-branded products arose from the discovery back in the late 1990s by Anglo Recycling’s owner Simon Macaulay, that the Sussex-based retail supplier of salads, Van Heineken Brothers (now Vitacress), used nonwoven felts on which to grow its cress.

“I drove down to see the company’s production manager, Chris Moncrieff and discovered they were indeed growing cress on felts, but they were made from virgin materials and he liked the idea of maybe using a blend of virgin fiber offcuts of cotton, wool, and polypropylene,” he explains. “That’s how Growfelt was born. For the first six years, we supplied exclusively to Vitacress and in return, they helped us to bring our factory up to food-grade standard and to set in place a testing regime for Salmonella E-Coli coliforms and listeria.”

In recent years, however, Anglo Recycling, which is based in Whitworth, near Rochdale in the UK, has significantly broadened its customer base. It now offers a core of three growing media products to meet the differing needs of customers across Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East, whether for retail presentation and appearance or for water holding.

For the sixth time now, Oerlikon Nonwoven will be showcasing market- and customer-oriented solutions for hygiene, medical, filtration and other technical applications at the globally-leading nonwovens trade fair INDEX in Geneva, Switzerland. Between March 31 and April 3, 2020, visitors to the trade fair can convince themselves of the Neumünsterbased systems constructor’s extensive product and process know-how.

Comprehensive spunbond portfolio – always the right solution
Oerlikon Nonwoven meanwhile has a very broad range of spunbond technology products and services. The process for manufacturing geotextiles from polyester or polypropylene has been optimized; it is characterized by high production capacities and yields, with simultaneously low energy consumption for producing benchmark nonwoven products.

For the manufacture of hygiene nonwovens, Oerlikon Nonwoven offers its new QSR (Quality Sized Right) systems. Here, the benefits of the Chinese machine construction partner’s nonwoven formation are integrated into the complete solution. The advantage for nonwovens producers: highly competitive solutions at attractive prices with comparably low investment.

Cost-efficiently manufacturing meltblown nonwovens
New, unique and highly sophisticated filter media can be easily and efficiently manufactured thanks to Oerlikon Nonwoven’s optimized meltblown technology. Whether as a stand-alone system with one or several positions, as ‘plug & produce’ installations for already existing systems or in conjunction with other technologies: the Oerlikon Nonwoven meltblown process already enables the cost-efficient manufacture of meltblown nonwovens with the quality requirements of tomorrow. Ever more producers are choosing the meanwhile extensively tried-and-tested and consistently further-developed Oerlikon Nonwoven meltblown solutions.

Airlaid technology for the nonwovens of tomorrow
Pulp or cellulose fibers as raw material for manufacturing nonwovens are currently virtually unrivaled with regards to sustainability and environmental compatibility. The Oerlikon Nonwoven airlaid process is the ideal solution for processing this raw material into high-end products for a wide range of applications. Today, there is huge demand for manufacturing solutions for high-quality, lightweight airlaid nonwovens with economically attractive production speeds and system throughputs. In this area, the patented Oerlikon Nonwoven formation process – which also permits the homogeneous mixing of the most diverse raw materials, while simultaneously guaranteeing superb evenness and homogeneous fiber laying – is setting standards even for nonwovens with low running meter weights. And the benefits of this technology are also increasingly gaining significance in sustainable recycling applications.

P&G patented PHANTOM technology from Teknoweb Materials
Also being showcased at the trade fair stand is the P&G patented PHANTOM technology from Teknoweb Materials, Oerlikon Nonwoven’s strategic partner for hygiene products and wipes. The PHANTOM technology is released to Teknoweb Materials by P&G in worldwide exclusive license. The PHANTOM technology is the superior dry laid alternative technology for manufacturing wet wipes from pulp and polymer fibers, for example. Compared to conventional, known processes, this technology offers superior performances with cost advantage in much more eco-friendly products. Dispensing with hydroentanglement renders subsequent drying of the material redundant. Targeted process management allows the optimal setting of the relevant product parameters such as softness, tenacity, dirt absorption and liquid absorption.

In the latest technology innovation from members of TMAS (the Swedish textile machinery association), ACG Kinna and ACG Nyström have teamed up with Juki Corporation – the world’s leading sewing machine manufacturer – in the development of a new automated line concept that can considerably speed up the production of finished filter bags.

Woven or nonwoven filter bags employed in a wide range of industrial processes may be under the radar as products, but they represent a pretty significant percentage of technical textiles production.

According to a recent report from BCC research, a leading US analyst covering this sector, industrial filtration represented a $555 million market in 2019 and some of the key areas where such filter bags are employed include:

• Metal fabrication, with effective filtration required for manual and automated welding, thermal cutting, blasting and machining, especially for coolant filtration.
• The process and energy industries, including foundries, smelters, incinerators, asphalt works and energy production plants.
• Other key manufacturing fields – often where dust is generated – including the production of timber, textiles, composites, waste handling and minerals, in addition to chemicals, food production, pharmaceuticals, electronics and agriculture.

Line integration
The new SFL-2000 line is the result of a four-year development project between Juki Central Europe, headquartered in Poland, and the two ACG companies.

It is capable of handling a wide range of different filter media, and as an all-in-one solution, can produce high quality and accurate seams to pre-defined parameters, with optional modules allowing for customised constructions.

Effiziente Lösungen und umfassendes Technologiewissen für die anspruchsvolle Filtrationsaufgaben stellen die Experten von Oerlikon Nonwoven vom 26. bis zum 28. Februar auf der FiltXPO 2020 in Chicago, USA dem internationalen Fachpublikum vor (Stand # 420).

Die Meltblown Technologie gehört zu den effizientesten Methoden bei der Erzeugung sehr feiner und hoch abscheidender Filtermedien aus Kunststofffasern. Neue, einzigartige und höchst anspruchsvolle Filtermedien lassen sich dank der optimierten Meltblown-Technologie von Oerlikon Nonwoven einfach herstellen. Diese zeichnet sich durch eine konstante Schmelzedruckverteilung bei gleichbleibender Verweilzeit über die gesamte Breite des Spinnbalkens hinweg aus. Zudem vermeidet die neuartige Führung und Verteilung der Prozessluft außerhalb des Breitschlitzverteilers der Oerlikon Nonwoven Technologie sogenannte Hotspots. Dies sorgt insgesamt für besonders homogene Vlieseigenschaften und Flächengewichte auch bei empfindlichen Rohstoffen.

Die Beladeeinheit aus dem Hause Oerlikon Nonwoven punktet gegenüber den zurzeit am Markt verfügbaren Konzepten mit ihrer hohen Flexibilität bei der Aufladung unterschiedlichster Vliesapplikationen. Der Anwender kann zwischen einer großen Anzahl an Variationsmöglichkeiten frei wählen und je nach Filterapplikation die optimale Beladungsmethode einstellen. Mit der Beladeeinheit von Oerlikon Nonwoven können so auch Filterklassen im Bereich EPA und HEPA hergestellt werden.

Die neue Formierzone sorgt für eine verbesserte Gleichmäßigkeit bei der Vliesbildung über die gesamte Breite auch bei hohen Spinngeschwindigkeiten und speziellen Polymeren sowie Polymerkombinationen. Durch die neu gestaltete Ablage wird außerdem erreicht, dass am Ende ein geringerer Vlieskantenabschnitt notwendig ist. Die neu entwickelte Mixed-Fiber Technologie ermöglicht die Kombination verschiedener Filamentquerschnitte und -polymere, um z.B: ein ideales Filter- und Plissierverhalten einstellen zu können.

Tailor-made solutions for hygiene, medical, filtration and other technical applications as well as extensive product and process know-how – with these arguments Oerlikon Nonwoven made a convincing appearance at the 18th Shanghai International Nonwoven Exhibition (SINCE) that took place from December 11 to 13.

Dr. Ingo Mählmann, Head of Sales and Marketing of Oerlikon Nonwoven, was very pleased with the three lively days at the trade fair: "The many discussions showed that we are on the right track with our strategy and the further development of our technologies with regard to nonwovens. Visitors were impressed by our technology solutions for disposable nonwoven fabrics or geotextiles". Almost all wellknown nonwoven fabric producers visited the trade fair stand of the plant manufacturer from Neumünster to find out about the advantages of spunbond, meltblown and airlaid technologies.

Overall, the nonwoven fabric team of the Oerlikon Group draws a very positive conclusion and looks back with satisfaction on the intensive and good quality discussions as well as numerous concrete inquiries from customers and prospective customers.

• Porcher Industries presents the future of quiet and clean mobility solutions with materials that offer high-performance thermal and acoustical insulation.

The 5th Edition of the Annual Automotive Exhaust Systems Summit, to be held in Dusseldorf on November 28th-29th, will see Porcher Industries showcase the market’s most complete range of high performance thermal and acoustical insulation products.

With a key strategic thrust targeting quiet and clean mobility by developing new insulation applications, Porcher Industries’ range of textiles meet the demands and requirements of the Automotive, Aerospace and other transport sectors by delivering unsurpassed levels of thermal and acoustical management.

On display the group will showcase its Techmat®, SilcoSoft® and ThermoShield® materials – all highly functional non-woven textiles that can be found in key areas of both the hot and cold ends of vehicle exhaust systems.

Produced from 100% non-respirable fibres, these binder free non-wovens are safe to handle and can be tailored to provide application specific thermal insulation and heat shields at temperatures ranging from 650˚C to 1150˚C (1200°F to 2100°F).

Porcher Industries is able to deliver its Techmat®, SilcoSoft® and ThermoShield® materials in a wide range of formats from roll goods, flat or formed shapes through to sub-assemblies and finished parts that combine metallic layers with their insulation materials.

Porcher Industries’ thermal and acoustical insulation solutions will also be on show in Dusseldorf: technical textiles that blend chemistry and fibre processing technology to produce a powerful range of non-woven and glass mat thermoplastics (GMT) materials that can be tailored to a customer’s specific acoustical and thermal insulation requirements.

In addition, Andreas Stoeferle, Technical Support Engineer, EMEA, Porcher Industries, will present a detailed view of the group’s expertise in high performance insulations, their global reach, products and delivery formats on the opening day of the conference.

“As one of the leading manufacturers of specialist technical textiles within the Automotive sector, we have responded to demand and placed significant development time and resource into developing our range of thermal and acoustical material solutions for Automotive and Aerospace.” commented Pierre-Yves Quéfélec, Global Aerospace & Automotive BU Head.