The study about processes and properties of spunlaced nonwovens for wet wipes

With the sustained growth of the wet wipes market and people’s demand for healthy and environment-protection products, the innovation of wet wipes has been stimulated. At the same time, people have a higher requirement about the properties of spunlaced materials. On this condition, the author had researched spunlaced wet wipes in cooperation with Wet Wipes Machine factory, aiming at developing a softer and more comfortable, healthy and sanitary, new-style material for wet wipes.

Based on a lot of market and technology researches, literature inquiries and international intercourse, this paper focused on four aspects: 

1. The first was to analyse the movement mechanism of fibers and the formation of texture in the fabric; in addition, this paper induced the main indexes, such as the Aqua-jet force, press and initial speed, which would affect the properties of nonwovens.
2. The second was to introduce the details of spunlaced nonwoven technique principles and production equipment for wet wipes, compare the properties of nonwovens with different proportions, and analyse the the tension property, moisture absorption process of nonwovens and the effection of tanglement from fibers with different softness.
3. The third was to research how different lapping ways to affect the structures and properties of nonwovens and analyse the arrangement of fibers by calculating the value of MD/CD and the lapping angle. The fourth was to study the property of environmental degeneration according to tension difference under dry and wet condition, degeneration speed, degeneration principles.

Through the research above, this subject mainly came to the following conclusions:

1. The experiment discovered: polyester (PET) is poor to be processed and tangled,Moreover, because PET has more rigidity than viscose and bamboo fibers, fabric whose PET component is excessive has poor hand feeling, absorption ability and short storage time. So, pure PET nonwovens are usually not suitable in wet wipes field.
2. Strong performance, flexibility and moisture absorption are important indexes to evaluate the physical property of wet wipes. Surface-active substance, solvend in water, PH and fluorescence are important indexes to evaluate the hygiene property of wet wipes. The research concluded: the fabrics whose proportions were 30% PET/70% viscose and 40% PET/60% viscose had a better property.
3. If we make spunlaced nonwovens with a cross lapper, the crosswise strength will be improved, After the fabrics were rubbed several times, the dimension was still good. Therefore, the cross lapping way is proper to make wet wipes.
4. The environmental degeneration indicated: after the air-dry of 85days, both the bamboo and viscose fibers were decomposed under UV light. The bamboo fibers don’t have the bio-degradation and their degeneration speed was slower than viscose fibers. While the viscose fibers had the bio-degradation, In addition, PET almost had no degeneration. In order to save resource and lighten the burden of environment, we had better use less PET or not use them.
5. The hygiene property of wet wipes is very strict. Because bamboo fibers have antibacterial performance, they had more potential to develop antibacterial wet wipes.

Quanzhou Rigor Machine Manufactory Co.,Ltd is an experienced and professional machinery manufacturer. We have been focusing on the research and development of different kinds of baby diaper machine, adult diaper machine, sanitary pad machine, underpad machine and wet wipes machine.