The origin and development history of non-woven fabrics

1. The origin of nonwoven technology The non-woven technology is emerging in modern times, but the bionic principle of this technology can be traced back to ancient China thousands of years ago. Archaeologists have confirmed that as long as 7,000 years ago, China had been able to domesticate wild silkworms into silkworms, spinning silk to make silk for decoration and clothing. The silkworm cocoons that our ancestors used to spin silk, in principle, show today's spunbond nonwovens. According to the "General Examination of Literature", in the Song Dynasty in China, there was a practice of "making silkworms grow, and cocoons are associated with self-contained quilts". A flat cocoon with a length of 8m and a width of 1.3m is made by using "Ten Thousand Silkworms with the Same Knot". Ancient nomads made felt by adding water, urine or milk essence to animal hair through mechanical action such as footsteps and sticks. Modern archaeology has also confirmed that as early as the second century BC, our ancestors invented hemp fiber paper inspired by bleaching, leaving a thin layer of silk on the bamboo mat. The batting is exactly the same as today's wetlaid nonwovens.

2. Development history of nonwovens The industrial production of nonwovens has been around for nearly a hundred years. The industrial production of non-woven fabrics in the modern sense began to appear in 1878, when the British company William Bywater successfully developed a needle punching machine in the world. The real modern production of the nonwovens industry only started after the Second World War. With the end of the war, the world is in ruins, and the demand for various textiles is increasing. Under this circumstance, nonwovens have developed rapidly and have gone through four stages so far:

(1. In the budding period, from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, most of the textile companies used ready-made prevention equipment to make appropriate transformations and use natural fibers to manufacture non-woven materials. During this period, only a few countries such as the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom were researching and producing non-woven fabrics, and their products were mainly thick and thick batt-like non-woven fabrics. (2. The commercial production period is from the end of the 1950s to the end of the 1960s. At this time, dry technology and wet technology are mainly used, and a large number of chemical fibers are used to manufacture non-woven materials.

(3. An important development period, from the early 1970s to the end of the 1980s, at this time, a complete set of production lines for polymerization and extrusion methods were born. The rapid development of various special nonwoven special fibers, such as low melting point fibers, thermal bonding fibers, bicomponent fibers, ultrafine fibers, etc., has rapidly promoted the progress of the nonwoven material industry. During this period, the global nonwovens production reached 20,000 tons and the output value exceeded 200 million US dollars. This is an emerging industry based on the cooperation of petrochemical, plastic chemical, fine chemical, paper industry and textile industry. It is known as the sunrise industry in the textile industry." application. On the basis of the continuous high-speed growth of non-woven fabric production, non-woven fabric technology has made many substantial progress at the same time, which has attracted worldwide attention, and the production area of non-woven fabric has also expanded rapidly. 4. During the global development period, from the early 1990s to the present, non-woven enterprises have developed by leaps and bounds. Through technological innovation of equipment, optimization of product structure, intelligent equipment, and market branding, etc., the non-woven technology has become more advanced and mature, the equipment has become more sophisticated, the performance of non-woven materials and products has been significantly improved, and the production capacity and product series have been continuously expanded. New products, new technologies, and new applications emerge one after another. During this period, the technology of spin-forming and melt-blown nonwovens has been rapidly promoted and applied in production, and machinery manufacturers have also launched complete sets of spin-forming and melt-blown nonwoven production lines to the market. Dry-laid nonwovens technology also made important progress during this period. Spunlace nonwovens were put into commercial production, and technologies such as foam impregnation bonding and hot-rolling bonding were popularized and applied.

3. History of non-woven technology research and development

In 1878, the British company William Bywater successfully developed the world's first acupuncture machine. In 1900, the James Hunter company of the United States started the development and research on the industrial production of non-woven fabrics. In 1942, a company in the United States produced thousands of yards of non-woven fabrics made by bonding, started the industrial production of non-woven fabrics, and officially named the product "Nonwoven fabric". In 1951, the United States developed meltblown non-woven fabrics. In 1959, the United States and Europe successfully researched the spin-laid non-woven fabric. In the late 1950s, the low-speed paper machine was transformed into a wet-laid non-woven machine, and the production of wet-laid non-woven fabrics began. From 1958 to 1962, the Chicot Company of the United States obtained the patent for the production of non-woven fabrics by the spunlace method, and it did not officially start mass production until the 1980s. my country began to study non-woven fabrics in 1958. In 1965, my country's first non-woven fabric factory, Shanghai Non-woven Fabric Factory, was established in Shanghai. In recent years, it has developed rapidly, but there is still a certain gap compared with developed countries in terms of quantity, variety and quality. The producers of non-woven fabrics are mainly concentrated in the United States (41% of the world), Western Europe accounts for 30%, Japan accounts for 8%, China's production only accounts for 3.5% of the world's production, but its consumption is 17.5% of the world's . The application of non-woven fabrics in sanitary absorbent materials, medical, transportation, and shoe-making textile materials has increased significantly. Judging from the status quo of technological development, the international non-woven technology equipment is developing in the direction of wide width, high efficiency, and mechatronics, making full use of modern high-tech achievements, and constantly updating production equipment and processes rapidly to improve performance, speed , efficiency, automatic control and other aspects have been significantly improved.

4. the proportion of non-woven raw materials

Man-made fibers still dominate the production of nonwovens, and until 2007, this situation will not change significantly. 63% of the fibers used in the production of nonwovens worldwide are polypropylene, 23% polyester, 8% viscose, 2% acrylic, 1.5% polyamide and the remaining 3% are others fiber. Between 1970 and 1985, viscose fiber was the most used in the production of non-woven fabrics. Between 2000 and 2005, in the field of sanitary absorbent materials and medical textiles, the application of polypropylene fibers and polyester fibers began to dominate. In the early non-woven production market, nylon was used in a large amount, and since 1998, the use of acrylic fibers began to rise, especially in the field of artificial leather manufacturing. In the development of raw materials, non-woven special polymer chips, differentiated fibers, functional fibers, high-performance fibers and biodegradable "green products" have been continuously developed. In recent years, driven by the benefits and continuous growth of demand, the nonwovens industry has become one of the fastest growing, most concerned and most innovative fields in the global weaving industry.