Hydroentangled split-fibre nonwoven material
View Patent ↗A hydroentangled integrated composite nonwoven material, includes a mixture of randomized continuous filaments, splittable shortcut staple fibers, and optionally non-splittable staple fibers. The splittable fibers should be 3-16 mm long bicomponent fibers. Preferably there should be no thermal bonding points between the filaments. The nonwoven material has improved textile feeling and reduced two-sidedness. The continuous filaments should preferably be spunlaid filaments. Some of the staple fibers can be colored. A process of producing such a nonwoven material is disclosed.
1. A method of producing a hydroentangled integrated composite nonwoven material, comprising
forming a web of randomized continuous filaments on a forming fabric;
providing an aqueous fibre dispersion comprising splittable shortcut staple fibres having a length of 3 to 16 mm;
wetlaying the aqueous fibre dispersion on the web of continuous filaments;
thus forming a fibrous web comprising the continuous filaments and splittable shortcut staple fibres; and
subsequently hydroentangling the fibrous web to form a hydroentangled nonwoven material, wherein a numerical majority of the splittable fibres are split during the hydroentanglement step.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein no thermal bonding process step is applied to the web of continuous filaments.
3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the splittable shortcut staple fibres have a length of 3 to 10 mm.
4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the splittable shortcut staple fibres have a length of 3 to 7 mm.
5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the aqueous fibre dispersion and thus the fibrous web further comprises non-splittable staple fibres.
6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the non-splittable staple fibres are selected from the group consisting of polyethylene, polypropylene, polyesters, polyamides, polylactides, rayon, and lyocell fibres and/or from the group consisting of polyethylene-polypropylene, polypropylene-polyester, polypropylene-polyamides bicomponent fibres without ability to split.
7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the fibrous web comprises 15-75% continuous filaments and 25-85% splittable shortcut staple fibres, all percentages calculated by weight of the fibrous web.
8. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the fibrous web comprises 15-75% continuous filaments, 10-60% splittable shortcut staple fibres, and 1-75% non-splittable staple fibres, all percentages calculated by weight of the fibrous web.
9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the continuous filaments are spunlaid filaments.
10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the continuous filaments are spunbond filaments.
11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the continuous filaments are selected from the group consisting of polypropylene, polyester, and polylactide filaments.
12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the splittable shortcut staple fibres are selected from the group consisting of polyethylene-polypropylene, polypropylene-polyester, polypropylene-polyamide bicomponent fibres with ability to split.
13. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the splittable shortcut staple fibres are selected from the group consisting of banded, crescent, star or pie types of bicomponent fibres.