BASIS WEIGHT UNIFORMITY OF LIGHTLY NEEDLED HYDROENTANGLED COTTON AND COTTON BLEND WEBS

New nonwoven products containing cotton and Lyocell (Trademarked name Tencel), low temperature thermal-bondable bicomponent olefin/polyester, or comber noils were developed using needlepunching and spunlacing (hydroentanglement). Webs containing five different blends were prepared by either light needlepunching, or light needlepunching followed by hydroentangling. We acquired detailed basis weight uniformity measurements to learn about processing and the influence of fiber blend composition on web uniformity. Basis weight uniformity was evaluated without regard to web direction ("Total" uniformity), along the machine direction (MD uniformity) and across the cross direction (CD uniformity) at numerous size resolutions. We observed that blending manufactured fibers (either Tencel or olefin/polyester) with bleached cotton and comber noils substantially improved basis weight uniformity of both types of nonwovens. We also observed that subjecting needled webs to hydroentangling significantly improved Total and MD uniformities

Spunlaced Cotton and Cotton Blend Cosmetic Pads and Bed Sheets: Study of Fiber Entanglement

Nonwoven webs containing five different blends of bleached cotton with Lyocell rayon, bicomponent core/sheath polyester/polyethylene, or cotton comber noil were prepared by either light needlepunching, or light needlepunching followed by spunlacing (hydroentanglement). We optically acquired fiber bundle size measurements to learn about the pre-needling process, the hydroentangling process and the influence of fiber blend composition on fiber entanglement. Fiber entanglement measurements were compared to basis weight uniformity measurements. One of the bed sheet developments utilized a combination of bonding technologies (spunlacing and thermal bonding) that used low energy. Results from this work indicate that spunlacing produced high quality cosmetic pads and economical short-life bed sheeting