In 2020, the epidemic has swept the world, and most regions in Europe and the United States are deeply troubled by the new crown pneumonia virus. The cumulative number of infections worldwide has reached 138 million. To this day, although vaccines have gradually become popular, the epidemic has not completely subsided, and health has become the key to 2020. word.

During the long period of epidemic prevention, health products such as masks, wet wipes, and protective clothing have become very popular. In addition to masks becoming essential protective equipment when going out, the demand for wet wipes is also rising. Europeans and Americans who originally like to use wet wipes stock up on wet wipes. The most lacking on supermarket shelves in Europe and the United States is wet wipes. Many families who didn't use wet wipes have started to use disinfection wipes for the convenience of disinfecting their skin at any time.（Click to share to LinkedIn）

In addition to disinfecting wipes, during the epidemic, a special anti-fog wipes for goggles was developed for medical needs. During the epidemic in early 2020, Sun Dazhi, an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology, saw in TV news reports that it was common for medical workers to fight on the front line to fog up the goggles, and he immediately thought of a scientific research project he was working on in recent years. The project designed a kind of anti-fog material, after spraying, the surface of the object will not be fogged when encountering temperature changes. It was originally intended to be applied to automobile glass anti-fog.

He decided to return to school as soon as possible, improve this material, and provide it to the frontline of epidemic prevention. Finally, in 3 days, Sun Dazhi developed an upgraded version of the medical anti-fog material and made it into a wet wipe for easy use. Using the laboratory as a production workshop, he worked manually for several days and hurriedly produced 3,000 anti-fog wipes and donated them to the Second Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of Southern China, which was the main battlefield of the epidemic in Shenzhen. This anti-fog wipes can prevent the medical goggles from fogging for one day after wiping, which greatly helps medical staff on the front line of anti-epidemic to improve efficiency and ensure safety.

In epidemic prevention, wet wipes are not only widely used in medical and health services, but also become popular products. In fact, with the improvement of people's living standards, many families have gradually replaced paper towels with wet wipes, and the future potential of the wet wipes market is endless.（Click to share to Facebook）

Market analysis of wet wipes

China's wet wipes industry has been difficult to perform before 2003. The scale of the industry is small and consumer recognition is low. The outbreak of SARS in 2003, the wet wipes industry became famous in the First World War, and more importantly, the Chinese people suffered from SARS. After that, the awareness of hygiene increased significantly, and the wet wipes industry did not "sink again" due to the end of the epidemic, but started an eight-year period of accelerated growth, and continued to maintain a growth rate of more than 10% from 2012 to 2019. , Growing into a highly profitable industry close to 10 billion yuan. According to statistics, the market size of China's wet wipes industry reached 8.78 billion yuan in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 13.73%.

From the perspective of global wet wipes consumption regions, Europe and North America are still the main wet wipes consumption regions, accounting for 22.58% and 37.61% respectively.

Although China's wet wipes business has made considerable progress, compared with developed countries in Europe and America, it is only 25.7% of the US market and 39% of Europe. If it is compared to the amount of consumption per capita, the gap is even more significant, indicating that the domestic wet wipes industry still has huge room for development. The "new crown epidemic" in 2020 is a secondary catalysis for China's wet wipes industry.

From the perspective of the distribution of the global wet wipes retail market, in 2018, the global retail sales of household cleaning wipes was 3,525 million US dollars, the retail sales of baby wipes were 5793 million US dollars, and the retail sales of cosmetic wipes were 1676 million US dollars. Retail sales of 1,341 million U.S. dollars, wet toilet paper retail sales of 1,090 million U.S. dollars, and feminine care wipes retail sales of 201 million U.S. dollars.

This shows that the wet wipes market can be expected in the future. The main material of wet wipes, non-woven fabrics, is also very room for future development. In addition to producing wet wipes, non-woven fabrics can also produce sanitary and health products such as protective clothing, masks, and diapers. Non-woven fabrics are indispensable for human daily life.

What is non-woven fabric?

The non-woven fabric is made of polyester fiber, polyester fiber (abbreviated as: PET), made by needle punching process, and can be made with different thickness, feel, hardness, etc. Non-woven fabrics can be used in combination with other materials or used alone in a variety of consumer and industrial products.

Non-woven fabrics are designed for their specific applications, from thin and lightweight non-woven fabrics to strong and durable non-woven fabrics. Whether in consumer or industrial applications, non-woven fabrics are selected through raw material selection, forming and bonding methods The application and post-processing (such as printing, embossing, lamination, etc.) of the product, combined with the specific characteristics of other products, greatly enhance the performance of the product.

Non-woven fabric has the characteristics of moisture-proof, breathable, flexible, light weight, flame retardant, non-toxic and tasteless, low price, and recyclable. It can be used in different industries, such as sound insulation, heat insulation, electric heating sheet, mask, clothing, medical , Filling materials, etc.

Features of non-woven fabric

The non-woven fabric has no warp and weft threads, it is very convenient to cut and sew, and it is light in weight and easy to shape, which is deeply loved by craft lovers. Because it is a kind of fabric that does not need to be spun and weaves, it just oriented or randomly arrange the textile short fibers or filaments to form a web structure, which is then reinforced by mechanical, thermal bonding or chemical methods.

It is not made of interwoven and knitted yarns one by one, but the fibers are directly bonded together by physical methods. Therefore, when you get the sticky scale in your clothes, you will find that, It is impossible to draw a single thread. Non-woven fabric breaks through the traditional textile principle, and has the characteristics of short process flow, fast production rate, high output, low cost, wide use, and multiple sources of raw materials.

Application of non-woven fabric

Non-woven fabrics cover almost every aspect of daily life and society. It is widely used in various fields such as health care, agricultural gardening, automobile transportation, clothing and footwear, construction, electrical and electronics, filtration, food and beverage, household, civil engineering, packaging, protective clothing, wet wipes and so on.

Non-woven fabrics are widely used in baby diapers, sanitary napkins, adult incontinence and personal care products, and are also used to produce auxiliary elements of these products, including topsheet/surface materials, leg covers, acquisition/distribution layers, core wraps, and backsheets , Ears, landing zone, dust removal layer and fixing system, etc.

Because non-woven fabrics have good softness, smoothness, leakage resistance, stretchability, strength and protection, they are very suitable for the production of absorbent sanitary products such as diapers, cotton soft towels, and sanitary napkins. Water-absorbent sanitary products made of non-woven fabrics therefore have good double impermeability, penetration, stability, tear resistance, stain hiding power and air permeability.

How is non-woven fabric made?

The production of non-woven fabrics is divided into three stages. In some cases, the three stages can be carried out at the same time.

1. Network formation

The manufacture of non-woven fabrics begins with arranging the fibers in a sheet or net. Fibers are short fibers or filaments extruded from molten polymer particles.

(1) Dry carding

Carding is a mechanical process starting from fiber bundles. These fibers are "opened" and mixed, and then transported by air to the carding machine. They are carded into a web by a carding machine, which is a rotating drum or a series of toothed drums (thin toothed strips) covered with a carding line. The precise configuration of the card will depend on the type of fiber and the basis weight of the production. The webs can be placed in parallel, most of the fibers are placed in the longitudinal direction, or they can be placed randomly. A typical parallel laid carded web forms good tensile strength, low elongation and low tear strength in the longitudinal direction and opposite in the transverse direction.

(2) Short fiber air-laid

In short fiber airlaid, the shorter fibers are fed into the forming head by air flow. The forming head ensures uniform mixing of all fibers. Passing through the air again, the controlled portion of the fiber mixture leaves the forming head and is deposited on the moving belt, where a randomly oriented fiber web is formed. Compared with carded webs, airlaid webs have lower density, higher softness and no layered structure. Airlaid fiber webs provide great versatility in terms of the fibers and fiber blends that can be used.

(3) Wet

The principle of wet coating is similar to that of papermaking. The difference lies in the number of synthetic fibers present in the wet-laid non-woven fabric. A thin slurry of water and fibers is deposited on the moving screen, the water is drained, and then the fibers form a web. By pressing between the rolls and further drying the fiber web. The latter part of the process usually involves impregnation with an adhesive.

The strength of the randomly oriented web is similar in all directions on the plane of the fabric. Various lengths of natural, mineral, synthetic and man-made fibers can be used.

(4) Spunbond

Spunbond is a general term that describes the process of making nonwoven webs directly from thermoplastic polymers. It includes two processes, spinning and melt blowing, which are usually combined together.

The polymer particles are extruded into filaments through so-called spinnerets. The continuous filaments are drawn and quenched, and then deposited on a conveyor belt to form a uniform web. Due to the attenuation of filaments, compared with carding, the non-woven fabric formed by spinning has higher strength. The disadvantage is that the choice of raw materials is more restricted. The co-extrusion of the two components will form fibers, which can not only increase the performance of the fiber web, but also conduct through-air bonding.

(5) Meltblown

Meltblown, like spinning, essentially extrudes low-viscosity polymers. However, when the filaments leave the spinneret, they are not quenched, but weakened by the hot air flow, so that the filaments remain partially molten. This results in fine filaments and low tensile strength. The filament hits the belt or conveyor belt, where it forms a net.（try Suntech Meltblown machine）

(6) Sub-micron spinning

Melt blowing will produce filaments with a minimum diameter of 1 micron. For more than ten years, people have tried to develop and produce non-woven fabrics with finer fibers. These can be used to increase the efficiency of the filter media or improve the barrier properties. The technologies on the market are submicron meltblown, centrifugal spinning, solution spinning and electrospinning. Although these methods have lower productivity compared to spinning melts, they can allow non-woven fabrics to produce unique properties.

（Suntech ST-SMS composite nonwoven production line）

2. Web page binding

Immediately after the web is formed, the initial strength of the web is limited (depending on various bonding mechanisms). Therefore, the Web needs to be merged in one way or another. The choice of web consolidation method largely depends on the desired functional properties and the type of fiber used. There are 3 basic types of binding:

(1) Thermal bonding

This method uses the thermoplastic properties of certain synthetic fibers to form bonds under controlled heating. In some cases, the web fibers themselves can be used, but it is more common to introduce low-melting fibers or bicomponent fibers during the web formation stage to perform the bonding function later in the process.

There are several thermal bonding systems in use: Calendering uses heat and high pressure applied by rollers to weld fiber webs together at high speed. Air thermal bonding makes the product bulkier through the integral bonding of the fiber web containing low-melting fiber, which is carried out in a carefully controlled hot air flow. The roller and blanket system applies pressure and heat to produce an average volume product.

In the ultrasonic bonding technology, the fiber molecules are "excited" under the patterned roller through the high-frequency motion of the "ultrasonic generator", thereby generating internal heating and softening of the fibers.

(2) Mechanical bonding

In mechanical bonding, due to the physical entanglement of the fibers, the fiber web is strengthened by friction between the fibers. There are two main types of mechanical bonding:

Needle punching, which pushes a specially designed needle into and pulls out the fiber web to entangle the fibers. Fiber webs with different characteristics can be needle punched together to produce performance levels that are difficult to achieve by other means. Needle punching can be used for most fiber types, but due to the nature of the process, it cannot be used for very fine fibers.

Spunlace is usually used to comb fiber webs or wet fiber webs, and use fine high-pressure water jets to interweave the fibers. The jet arrangement can also be used to produce various aesthetically pleasing effects, and the water jet pressure used directly affects the strength of the web.

(3) Chemical bonding

Chemical bonding refers to the application of a liquid-based adhesive to the web. Three types of materials are commonly used as adhesives-acrylate polymers and copolymers, styrene-butadiene copolymers, and vinyl acetate-ethylene copolymers. Water-based adhesive systems are the most widely used adhesives, and there are also powdered adhesives, foams, and in some cases organic solvent solutions.

The adhesive can be applied in a variety of ways, and can be applied uniformly and intermittently by dipping, coating or spraying, as in printing bonding.

3. Sorting out

The opportunity to combine different raw materials and different technologies illustrates the diversity of the industry and its products. Through a series of post-processing, the product diversity has been further enhanced. Through finishing, non-woven materials can be customized or functionalized to meet specific properties. Finishing can be mechanical (stretching, perforating, crimping, etc.) or chemical. The use of chemical methods can change the surface of fibers and nonwovens and the tactility or repellency of nonwovens.

Non-woven fabrics can be made into conductive, flame-retardant, water-repellent, absorbent, porous, antistatic, and air-permeable materials, and can also be applied to coating, printing, flocking, dyeing or laminating to other materials.

（Suntech ST-AWMM Wet wipe machine）

With 50 years of design experience and technological precipitation, suntech has developed and produced spunbonded nonwoven machines, spunmelt nonwoven machines, meltblown machines and other nonwoven machines and wet tissue machines, helping the production of nonwovens and wet tissues for humanity. Provide convenience in daily life and care for human health.

（Suntech ST-ASS spunbond nonwoven machine）