The vital role that research and development projects play in continuously driving forward the nonwovens industry is always a key element at INDEX shows. The 2014 event – which takes place from April 8th-11th in Geneva, Switzerland – will be no exception.

The nonwovens sector is extremely well-integrated, and in addition to the activities of the manufacturers themselves, strong research alliances have been forged with suppliers and customers, resulting in an almost uniquely-integrated chain.

Much development work, however – especially as far as the essential synthetic fibre raw materials are concerned – was historically driven by such giant chemical corporations as Akzo-Nobel in the Netherlands, Hoechst AG in Germany, ICI and Courtaulds in the UK and Rhône-Poulenc in France.

But one of the most successful of all companies in developing new synthetic fibres was DuPont. In one remarkable month, April 1930, the DuPont scientist Dr Wallace Hume Carothers and his team discovered both neoprene synthetic rubber and synthesized the first polyester. Perhaps surprisingly, at the time DuPont opted to ignore polyester, although the fibre it chose to commercialise instead – polyamide, or nylon – certainly made enough of an impact. During his nine years with DuPont, Carothers filed for more than 50 critical patents, which would secure his company’s future for many years to come.

 Vileda

The development of the very first nonwovens at Freudenberg in Germany was also the result of a chance discovery in the laboratory.

Back in 1849, Freudenberg was originally founded as a tannery and became one of the biggest leather manufacturers in Europe after developing a tanning process using chrome liquor instead of vegetable dyes.

But the period from the First World War to the economic crisis of 1929 hit the company hard, and it was obliged to look for other products and markets.

Freudenberg researchers started re-working leather residues and then developing substitute materials for leather – notably with synthetic rubber as the base material. But variants of this base material – employing the newly-available synthetic fibres – were soon recognised as materials with many other uses.

By 1948 Freudenberg had introduced its nonwoven interlinings under the brand Vlieseline and its Vileda household products, with Viledon filter materials following a decade later – all of which remain highly-successful brands today.

Meltblown

Meltblown nonwovens, meanwhile, were first produced in the early 1950s by the USA’s Naval Research Laboratories, which believed that the materials might have the ability to collect radioactive particles in the upper atmosphere – in order to monitor the worldwide testing of nuclear weapons.

This project was subsequently abandoned, but re-discovered almost 20 years later by researchers at Exxon, who were exploring uses for the company’s newly-commercialised polyolefin (known as polypropylene today), the key raw material for a considerable percentage of spunmelt nonwovens.

After a multi-year, multi-million dollar project and much patenting, Exxon decided to license the meltblowing technology it had developed. Among initial licensees was Germany’s Reifenhäuser, which today leads the field with its Reicofil spunmelt technology.

Radical change

While companies such as DuPont and Freudenberg continue to actively push new product development today, the likes of Akzo Nobel, Hoechst, ICI, Courtaulds and Rhône-Poulenc either no longer exist or have moved away from synthetic fibres and, as a result, considerable research and development is now carried out at universities around the world, in addition to research institutes – a number of which are specifically dedicated to the nonwovens industry.

These now include the Nonwovens Institute (NWI) – which boasts the world’s first accredited academic programme for the interdisciplinary field of engineered fabrics, in North Carolina, USA.

Based at the North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the NWI has been established as a global partnership between industry, government and academia, closely linked to the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC) there

Another successful example is the Nonwovens Research Academy at University of Leeds in the UK, and its commercial spin-out company, NIRI.

Germany, not surprisingly, has a number of institutes involved in many areas of materials development and key names in the nonwovens arena include ITV Denkendorf and the Saxon Textile Research Institute at Chemnitz, both INDEX exhibitors.

The latest addition to these dedicated research institutes is CETI, a new €40 million multi-sector technology and pilot centre in northern France which opened at the end of 2012. CETI houses some 20 machines offering more than 100 different textiles and nonwoven solutions, and has just started up drylaid nonwovens production with equipment supplied by INDEX exhibitors Laroche, Andritz Asselin Thibeau and Strahm.

Since its inauguration in October 2012, CETI has hosted many international delegations and visits illustrating the interest of industrial stakeholders in the versatility of the pilot plant.

EDANA, sponsor of the INDEX shows, will host its 2013 Nonwovens Innovation Academy (NIA) – showcasing the best of current academic research worldwide – at CETI from November 27th-28th.

In addition, many nonwovens companies, research institutes and universities are actively involved in a number of FP7 projects funded by the European Union – ensuring there is still plenty of opportunity for happy accidents to arise today.