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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Cotton Chemistry and Utilization Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #283135
Title: Effect of web formation on properties of hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics

Author
item Sawhney, Amar
item Allen Jr, Hiram
item Reynolds, Michael
item Slopek, Ryan
item Condon, Brian
item HUI, DAVID - University Of New Orleans
item Wojkowski, Suhad

Submitted to: World Journal of Engineering
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/23/2012
Publication Date: 11/14/2012
Citation: Sawhney, A.P., Allen Jr, H.C., Reynolds, M.L., Slopek, R.P., Condon, B.D., Hui, D., Wojkowski, S.K. 2012. Effect of web formation on properties of hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics. World Journal of Engineering. 9(5):407-416.

Interpretive Summary: To increase use of cotton fiber lint and its typical ginning and mill-processing byproducts, such as motes and comber noils, respectively, in nonwovens, a fiber processing study was conducted to determine the effects of the two most popular staple-fiber web-forming technologies on the process and product performances of the nonwoven fabrics produced with various fibers and their blends, using hydroentanglement system of producing nonwovens. The study has shown that using either web-forming technology, the greige cotton lint, greige cotton gin motes, and even greige cotton comber noils, either alone or in blend with the other fibers, can be mechanically processed into hydroentangled nonwoven fabric structures without any insurmountable difficulties and that the fabrics produced have reasonably acceptable properties, considering that some of these cotton fibers cannot be efficiently processed using traditional textile processes, viz., yarn spinning, weaving, knitting, etc. Depending on the fiber properties and/or their blends, a proper selection of the web-forming technology can be useful in reaping maximum benefit in processing cotton-based nonwoven products.

Technical Abstract: A study was conducted to determine the effects of two popular web-forming technologies, viz., the Rando air-laid technology and the traditional carding technology, on properties of the hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics made therewith. The fibers used in the study were greige cotton, bleached cotton, cotton derivatives (e.g., gin motes and comber noils), and cut-staple polyester. The hydroentangled fabrics produced with the two systems were mainly evaluated for their physical and mechanical properties, absorbency, absorbency capacity, and whiteness. The study has shown that, with the exception of greige cotton linters, the greige cotton lint, greige cotton gin motes, and even greige cotton comber noils, either alone or in blend with the other fibers mentioned, can be mechanically processed into hydroentangled nonwoven fabric structures without any insurmountable difficulties. Further, the air-laid webs, when compared to the carded webs, consistently yield a considerably higher fabric tensile strength in the machine direction (MD), but there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference in the cross direction (CD). The fabric absorbency, the drop test and the capacity were very similar for both the carded and Rando webs. However, the addition of synthetic fibers increases sink times of the fabric in both the carded and Rando web-forming systems. The drop test and sink time followed each other pretty closely, as the drop test time increased so did the sink times. The “whiteness” of fabric, which is significantly more dependent on the fabric’s constituent fiber content than on the fabric’s surface-based light reflection, obviously varied considerably. However, the whiteness index within the same fiber types and their blends shows no trend of significant difference between the fabric produced with carded fiber web and the fabric produced with random Rando fiber web.