From the Sector

At ITMA 2023 in Milan from June 8-14 this year, Monforts is organising two free-to-attend seminars and discussions on the potential of green hydrogen as a new energy source for textile finishing, drying and related processes.

Monforts is currently leading a consortium of industrial partners and universities in the three-year WasserSTOFF project, launched in November 2022, that is exploring all aspects of this exciting and fast-rising new industrial energy option.
The target of the government-funded project is to establish to what extent hydrogen can be used in the future as an alternative heating source for textile finishing processes. This will first involve tests on laboratory equipment together with associated partners and the results will then be transferred to a stenter frame at the Monforts Advanced Technology Center (ATC).

To be considered “green”, hydrogen must be produced using a zero-carbon process that is powered by renewable energy sources such as wind or solar. Currently, the cleanest method of hydrogen production is electrolysis, using an electrically-powered electrolyzer to separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The purity of the hydrogen is also important, and impurities must be removed via a separation process.

“Despite all its advantages, there are obstacles to overcome on the way to widespread, economically-feasible green hydrogen use,” explains Monforts Textile Technologies Engineer Jonas Beisel. “Until there are widely available, reliable and economical sources of this clean power, the cost of producing it will remain prohibitive. The infrastructure is not yet there, and hydrogen also has a tendency to make steel brittle and subject to fracture, which is something that requires further investigation in both its transportation and use in industrial processing.
“Green energy’s potential as a clean fuel source is tremendous, but there is much we need to explore when considering its use in the textile finishing processes carried out globally on our industry-leading Montex stenter dryers and other machines.”

At its Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in Mönchengladbach, Monforts will be carrying out intensive tests and trials to assess the reliability of both processes and final products when different natural gas and hydrogen mixtures – up to 100% green hydrogen – are employed. The results will be closely analysed by the consortium partners because there are many parameters that at this stage remain unknown.

The aim, Beisel adds, is to both reduce CO₂ emissions and – following the rising prices and industry turbulence experienced by manufacturers over the past year or so – to further reduce a dependency on natural gas.

The three-year WasserSTOFF project is sponsored by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and with Monforts at the helm brings together industrial partners Pleva and NTB Nova Textil, with academic input from the Hochschule Niederrhein and the Technical University of Freiberg.

From April 25^th to 27^th, 2023, the Institute of Textile Machinery and High Performance Material Technology (ITM) of TU Dresden will be exhibiting at the pavilion SAXONY! at JEC World 2023.

The ITM will provide a comprehensive overview of its current research in the field of machine and product development along the entire textile process chain.

The upcoming JEC 2023 exhibition will highlight innovative Customised Connective Cores (CCC), which are custom-made core-insert structures additively manufactured using cellular metal and a form-fit integrated insert. These CCCs can be seamless integrated either as patches or as full-surface core material into lightweight panels, offering significantly improved load-bearing behavior (especially 4 times the load-bearing capacity and fail-safe behavior) compared to existing technologies. This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for fastening lightweight panels.

Another highlight at the exhibition is the repair process for fibre-reinforced composites (FRP) developed at the ITM. Instead of mechanically grinding the damaged area, the matrix in the repair area is locally dissolved using a UV-rays-induced depolymerisation process. Damaged fibres can thus be replaced by a customized repair patch. Free yarn ends on the textile repair patches are spliced with the UV-exposed yarn ends in the repair area using an adapted splicing process. In this way, a very clean, simplified and mechanically improved repair area can be achieved compared to the state of the art.

The diverse possibilities offered by the structure and process simulation of textile high-performance materials and textile manufacturing processes will also be presented. By means of multi-scale modelling and simulation, a profound understanding of materials and processes is achieved at the ITM. Finite element models on the micro, meso and macro scale have been developed and validated for this purpose. Examples from current ITM research projects demonstrate the various possibilities and areas of application of modern simulation methods in the field of textile technology.

Moreover, an innovative process for the integral manufacturing of 3D rib-stiffened preforms with complexly arranged stiffeners in 0°, 90° and ± 45° orientation was developed and successfully implemented at the ITM. Due to the process-integrated structure fixation and the continuous fibre reinforcement between shell and rib structure, the 3D preforms are perfectly suited for the production of highly load-bearing FRP components with increased bending stiffness, which will be exhibited at JEC. Hence, the lightweight construction potential of high-performance fibres can be fully exploited.

A successfully established development are partially flowable 2D textile reinforcement fabrics that are continuously manufactured in one single process step. For this purpose, the entire process chain was developed at the ITM, which allows a cost-effective and high-volume production of load-bearing thermoplastic 3D FRP components with continuous fibre reinforcement between shell and stiffeners.

At JEC 2023, the ITM will also present a partially embedded textile latice girder as reinforcement for carbon concrete applications, which was produced by means of an innovative textile manufacturing process based on the multiaxial warp knitting technology. Through the development of a customized warp insertion, manipulation and take-off system as well as appropriate shaping methods, it is now possible to produce tailored textile semi-finished products, e.g. for use in wall and ceiling panels. These textile latice girders represent a resource-saving alternative to conventional steel girders due to the reduced among of concrete required and the additional cavity for media and cable guidance.

The integration of textile actuators and sensors in FRP provides structures with additional functionalities. The research and application of such interactive FRP with different matrix materials (e.g. with thermoset, elastomer or concrete matrix systems) for structural health monitoring or adaptive systems is one of the key research areas of the ITM.

Moreover, the development and implementation of innovative yarn constructions based on recycled high-performance fibres (e.g. rCF, rGF, rAR) for sustainable FRPs is successfully promoted at ITM. By use of a special carding machine, recycled fibres are opened up, separated and joined to form a wide, uniform ribbon. Subsequently, innovative hybrid yarn constructions made of evenly mixed recycled high-performance and thermoplastic fibres with variable fibre volume fractions can be manufactured by means of various spinning technologies. Selected yarn constructions and components will be showcased at JEC.

FiloFlow and C.L.A.S.S. join forces and showcase the "Sustainability from A to Z" desk at the upcoming 59th edition of Filo.

Filo and C.L.A.S.S. have always shared the commitment to a tangible sustainability of products and processes of the textile industry. The Yarn Show realizes this through the FiloFlow project, while the international eco-hub founded by Giusy Bettoni demonstrates its commitment through services that support companies in their journey towards responsible innovation.

With this shared commitment, Filo and C.L.A.S.S. are making available to the companies that will join the 59th edition of the Yarn Show a new service dedicated to information and guidance in the field of sustainability.

Within the FiloFlow Area, C.L.A.S.S. will curate the "Sustainability from A to Z" desk, designed to provide companies with an orientation about sustainability matter in textiles: from certifications to environmental impact and end-of-life measurements, the importance of ethics and the energy savings; from responsible innovation to new generation communication.

The 59th edition of Filo takes place on February 22nd and 23rd, 2023 in Milan.

Beste x HeiQ AeoniQ™ announce their partnership with the launch of a capsule in the CARPINI collection at Milano Unica. The fabrics including HeiQ AeoniQ™ are crafted by the Italian textiles manufacturer Beste, well known for supplying high-end fabrics for premium and luxury brands.

The fabrics capsule collection for S/S 24 includes 12 articles made with 100% HeiQ AeoniQ™, linen, and HeiQ AeoniQ™ blends, and cotton and HeiQ AeoniQ™ blends in several different proportions.
The collection is named FLOW, as related to the movement of water and air to be in tune with Nature’s balance and rhythm, with a color range including hay, black, water, caramel, violet, dust, denim, lime, and cobalt.

With this initiative, Beste becomes the first partner to incorporate the HeiQ AeoniQ™ fiber into its active fabric portfolio, and also its Tessuteka, the library that keeps all the fabrics produced by the company since 1993.

For Carlo Centonze, HeiQ’s CEO “the partnership with Beste makes total sense for all the values embodied by HeiQ AeoniQ™ that we both share, namely its commitment to circular ethics, practice and promote sustainability, and have a positive impact in the environment while also creating new business opportunities that the market and the Planet so urgently need.”

According to Giovanni Santi, Beste’s CDA president: “Beste SpA benefit company is strongly committed to developing a positive and responsible impact over the environment and the social fabric it is surrounded by. To meet this precise criterion, we use HeiQ AeoniQ™, a new biodegradable fiber developed by HeiQ, a Swiss chemical company that is Beste's constant partner in this indispensable green revolution. The introduction of HeiQ AeoniQ™, namely a fiber that is cellulosic in nature but with characteristics and performances similar to polyester ones, concerns a significant step in the reduction of CO2 emissions and plastics. It is not only a responsible choice, but it also deals with a precise and courageous positioning in the constant battle in favor of our planet by starting from the textile innovation front.”

The new Beste x HeiQ AeoniQ™ fabrics will be displayed at Beste’s booth during the Milano Unica trade show from January 31st to February 2nd, in Milan, Italy.

ITM - International Textile Machinery Exhibition, which is one of the world's most important exhibitions in its field and carries its success beyond its borders, will be held in a country other than Turkey for the first time next year under the name 'ITM Uzbekistan'. 'ITM Uzbekistan 2023 Exhibition', which will be held in Uzbekistan New Expo Center on September 12-15, 2023, will bring together buyers from Central Asia and Turkic Republics with the world's most important textile and garment technology manufacturers.

ITM Uzbekistan to be organized in odd years
'ITM Uzbekistan', organised by Teknik Fairs Inc. and Tüyap Tüm Fuarcılık Yapım Inc., will be first held in September 2023, from 12th to 15th, and thenorganized in the following odd years such as 2025, 2027, and so on. The exhibition calendar was created by taking into account the dates of the exhibitions organized in the same sector in different countries of the world and in Europe and the benefits of the sector.

Tashkent New Expo Center
New Expo Center, built in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, will host the most important events of both Central Asia and Turkic Republics. New Expo Center, where many national and international events will be held, will be the gateway of Central Asia to the world. The exhibition center, consisting of a total area of 44 thousand square meters and two stages, was built with the latest technology, taking into account all needs. The new exhibition center, which includes cafes/restaurants, resting areas, meeting, congress, seminar and exhibition halls, is an important attraction center with its proximity to the new airport under construction in the capital and the facilities where the international Olympic Games will be held.

The 11^th India ITME will take place from December 8.– 13., 2022, in Noida, India. Over 1,800 exhibitors and more than 150,000 trade visitors from the textile and apparel industry from all over the world are expected. Groz-Beckert will be presenting innovations from its various product areas..

India ITME takes place every four years and is the ideal technology platform for forward-looking innovations in the textile world. At the 11th edition of India ITME, exhibitors will be presenting their highlights from research and development across 15 halls.

The Knitting Product Division will be presenting several new products at India ITME: Among them the SAN™ SF staple fiber needle and the SNK SF staple fiber sinker, which are specially designed for use on large circular knitting machines. The division will also be exhibiting the SAN™ TT for application-related use in the field of technical textiles for flat knitting machines, as well as a needle which enables the advance into new dimensions of gauge in the flat knitting sector.

Groz-Beckert will also be demonstrating its competence as a system supplier in the field of warp knitting at the India ITME. The warp knitting machine needles and system parts from Groz-Beckert are precisely matched to one another and achieve a uniform and flawless warp knitting process.

With the WarpMasterPlus and the KnotMaster, the Weaving product division presents the latest generation of drawing-in and knotting machines from Groz-Beckert. They are particularly distinguished by their ease of operation and flexibility.

The product area Felting (Nonwovens) presents its product and service highlights for the nonwovens industry. These include the HyTec P jet strip for spunlace customers as well as the GEBECON felting needle, the dur needle, EcoStar felting needle and the Groz-Beckert customer product. The HyTec P-nozzle strip is characterized by improved handling and higher hardness. The patented GEBECON felting needle offers an improved surface finish and optimized breakage bending properties.

The Carding product area will present its further developments for the spinning industry. These include the new stationary flat series, the TV56 revolving top and the cylinder wire set with special tooth geometry. The new stationary flat series is characterized by an innovative tooth geometry and a new type of tooth distribution. The new TV56  revolving top with its new setting pattern and 560 points per square inch is particularly easy to clean. The improved cylinder wire convinces with its special and patented tooth shape, which has a positive effect on the maintenance effort. This makes it particularly suitable for quality-oriented cotton spinning mills producing high-quality yarns. Visitors can also look forward to the new InLine card clothing series for the nonwovens sector.

In the Sewing exhibition area, the focus is on technical textiles – in particular the manufacture of car seats. The answer to the high demands of sewing car seats is the special application needle SAN® 5.2 from Groz-Beckert. The special geometry gives it sufficient stability. The double groove at the point improves thread guidance and leads to a uniform seam pattern, especially in multidirectional sewing processes. The scarf chamfer on both sides of the needle prevent skipped stitches and optimize loop formation. The wear protection is increased by the titanium nitride coating GEBEDUR. In addition, the quality management INH will be exhibited and the functions and contents of the customer portal will be presented.

DiloGroup will be attenting India ITME 2022 (December 8 – 13, 2022), an exhibition for the textile industry, which offers a central forum for dialogue within the textile production sector, including textile machine building, fibre production, ancillaries and accessories. For DiloGroup this event is a good oppportunity to inform customers and interested parties about new developments aimed at improving production technologies with a focus on needlefelts.

Focal points of the development work are:

1. Intense Needling:
   The development efforts of DiloGroup aim at producing nonwovens by “intense needling” instead of water entangling, even for light nonwovens made of fine fibres for the medical and hygiene sector with an area weight of 30 – 100 g/m². This would result in a reduction of the environmentally relevant production costs; per annum to about 1/3 to 1/5 of current.
2. “Fibre Pulp Recycling”
   Fibrous material in nonwovens and particularly used clothes can be successfully recycled, if staple length can be conserved in the tearing process. In the classical tearing process, staple lengths are dramatically reduced and therefore these fibres can only be used as base material for inferior uses in thermal or acoustic insulation or in protective textiles, transportation or protective covers etc.
   When recycling textile waste in the context of the collection of used clothes, the so called “filament-saving” tearing using special tearing machines and methods must be used to produce fibres with longer staple lengths which can be fed to a nonwoven installation. Hence product characteristics can be better specified and controlled.
3. Additive nonwoven production
   The additive production method of the “3D-Lofter” is especially suited for automotive parts with differently distributed masses. It is also suited for uses in the sector of apparel and shoe production.
4. “IsoFeed”-card feeding
   In the field of card feeding, the “IsoFeed” method offers great potential for a more homogeneous card feeding at the same time reducing the variation in cross-machine fibre mass distribution and thus the fibre consumption while conserving the end product quality.

Ulrich Reifenhäuser, CSO of the Reifenhäuser Group, was awarded the prestigious Georg Menges Prize 2022 at the 31st International Colloquium on Plastics Technology in Aachen from September 7-8, 2022. The prize recognizes individuals or groups who have rendered outstanding services to the transfer of research results into industrial practice. The sponsors of the award are the Plastics and Rubber section of Germany's Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA), together with PlasticsEurope Deutschland and the Association of Sponsors of the Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV) in Industry and Craft at RWTH University. The award is traditionally presented every two years during the colloquium organized by the IKV. Ulrich Reifenhäuser is the first businessman to receive the Georg Menges Award.

The award was presented by Professor Dr.-Ing. Christian Hopmann, Director of the IKV and Dr.-Ing. Herbert Müller, Chairman of the Board of the IKV Sponsors' Association. In his laudatory speech, Professor Hopmann highlighted Ulrich Reifenhäuser's great and successful commitment to the industry and his tireless search for optimal solutions that are sustainable in the best sense of the word, and praised him as a personality of integrity and integration. "The Georg Menges Prize is awarded for the consistent implementation of research and innovation in industry. The previously described achievements of our prizewinner would certainly have been enough to receive the award but, for the sponsors of the Prize, what was especially important and the key argument for their decision was Ulrich Reifenhäuser’s honorary dedication to the K tradefair," explained Professor Hopmann.

Ulrich Reifenhäuser has been a member of the Reifenhäuser Group management since 1992 and is responsible for international line sales. Together with his brother Bernd Reifenhäuser, he manages the company in the third generation. Ulrich Reifenhäuser has been a board member of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association for more than 25 years and has been its chairman since 2010. In 2020, he was inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame, as was the award's namesake, and in 2022 he will be co-chairing the world's leading plastics trade fair in Düsseldorf for the seventh time in a row as "President of K show."

Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) has launched a new international edition of Global Fashion Summit. Traditionally held in Copenhagen, the new edition in Singapore will further focus on the perspectives of manufacturers and supply chain partners to deeper understand how the industry can collaborate to reduce social and environmental impact in the entire value chain. Global Fashion Summit: Singapore Edition will take place on 3 November 2022 at Hilton Singapore Orchard.

The theme of Global Fashion Summit: Singapore Edition continues GFA’s focus on ‘Alliances For a New Era’. Under this theme, the Summit will call on the industry to accelerate change - encouraging more alliances between manufacturers, suppliers, investors, brands, NGOs, policymakers and more. It will also examine cross-industry alliances, in a bid to accelerate the transition to a net positive reality.
 
By bringing the forum to Asia, the new edition will include even more manufacturer and supply chain partner voices in the programme to discuss sustainability challenges, differences, and opportunities to collaborate with brand executives on equal terms. Plenary sessions will consider topics such as:

• Renewable energy transformation – what does concrete transformation look like from tier 1-3 perspectives and what measures are needed to implement it?
• Better wage systems – how can the industry establish fair compensation, underpinned by fair purchasing practices that will help end poverty for millions of garment workers?
• Performance measurement – how can the industry accurately measure sustainability performance and tackle data credibility challenges?

Half of the programme will be dedicated to educational and action-oriented business case studies with options for direct interaction and live reactions. These will include tangible learnings and concrete recommendations to mobilise guests to take immediate action following the event.
 
The event will foster further collaboration across stakeholder groups through productive roundtable sessions that create an exchange of views among key decision makers in both the public and private sectors. These meetings will be designed and set up to drive commitments and new alliances for concrete action.

The company’s principle theme at Techtextil was Sustainability, since FET extrusion systems are ideally suited for both process and end-product development of sustainable materials. These systems are designed to be material efficient, can be bespoke designed and offer both flexibility and a high level of processing capability. They are supplied as self-contained units for ease of installation in a laboratory or small scale process evaluation environment.

FET’s enhanced Fibre Development Centre enables clients to develop and trial their own sustainable fibres and FET has now successfully processed almost 30 different polymer types in multifilament, monofilament and nonwoven formats

The innovative stand at Techtextil was specifically designed to highlight FET’s total commitment to all aspects of sustainability. It utilised as many sustainable components as possible and met with much comment and approval from visitors.

Fibre Extrusion Technology Limited (FET) of Leeds, England enjoyed another successful Techtextil in Frankfurt, with high quality enquiries from technical companies and organisations worldwide, but in particular from customers based in Europe.