The ‘heart’ of N95 masks and the entire filtration and healthcare industry’s core instrument against this battle against the COVID pandemic is the Meltblown nonwoven fabric. Melt blown nonwovens are mostly composed of polypropylene, with fiber diameters ranging from 1 to 5 microns. There are a lot of voids, fluffy structures, and anti-wrinkle properties. The unique structure of melt blown fabric offers outstanding filtration, shielding, heat insulation, and oil absorption thanks to these ultra-fine fibres with a distinctive non-woven vascular microstructure that increases the quantity and surface area of fibers per unit area. Meltblown Non-woven fabric can be found in air, liquid filter materials, isolation materials, absorption materials, mask materials, thermal insulation materials, oil-absorbing materials, and wiping cloths, among other applications.
Melt blown fabric production steps include polymer feeding, melt extrusion, fiber formation, fiber cooling, net formation, and textile strengthening.
Scope of application
- Medical Nonwoven: Surgical gowns, protective garments, disinfection wraps, masks, diapers, sanitary napkins, and other medical and health cloths;
- Meltblown Nonwoven as Home or Interlining Fabric: Fabric for home decorating, such as wall hangings, tablecloths, bedsheets, and bedspreads;
- Meltblown as Garment cloth: lining, adhesive lining, wadding, shaped cotton, synthetic leather base cloth, and so on.
- Meltblown as Filter fabric, insulating fabric, cement packaging bag, geotextile, covering fabric, and other industrial fabrics;
- Agricultural cloth, such as crop protection, seedling rearing, irrigation, and thermal insulation curtains;
- Other materials include space cotton, thermal insulation materials, linoleum, cigarette filters, tea bags, and other similar items.
Medical Nonwovens – Core component of Surgical/N95 Mask filter media
The “heart” of medical surgical masks and N95 masks is meltblown fabric.
Medical-surgical masks and N95 masks commonly use a multilayer construction known as the SMS structure, with single-layer spun-bond layers (S) on the inner and outer sides and a melt-blown layer (M) in the centre that can be separated into single or multiple layers.
Flat masks are commonly made of PP spunbond+ meltblown+ PP spunbond, but one layer can be substituted with staple fibre to improve skin feel.
PET polyester needle punched cotton + melt-blown + needle punched cotton or PP spun-bond nonwoven are used for three-dimensional cup masks. The outside layer is a waterproof nonwoven fabric that is primarily utilized to shield the droplets sprayed by the patient; The intermediate melt-blown layer is a specially processed melt-blown fabric with outstanding filtering, shielding, heat insulation, and oil absorption capabilities. The outer layer is made of standard nonwoven fabric, while the inner layer is made of melt blown fabric.
Despite the fact that the mask’s spunbond (S) and meltblown (M) layers are non-woven fabrics and the raw materials are polypropylene, the production process is different.
The inner and outer spunbond layer fibers are rather thick, around 20 microns; the middle melt blown layer fiber is barely 2 microns in diameter and is constructed of a polypropylene polymer called high-melt fat fiber.
Nonwoven fabric is a new type of environmentally friendly fabric that has water repellence, breathability, flexibility, incombustibility, rich colours, and no stimulation. This substance has the shortest life lifetime of 90 days when placed outside; however, it takes 8 years when placed indoors due to natural decay. It does not contaminate the environment because it is non-toxic, tasteless, and leaves no residue.
The benefits include not producing lint, being robust, durable, and silky soft, as well as being a type of reinforcement, feeling like cotton, and being less expensive than cotton.
In the environment, the most commonly utilized raw materials are polypropylene non-woven fabric and polyethylene plastic bags. Despite the fact that both names are similar; however, the chemical structure is vastly different and makes an immense difference to the environment.
Polyethylene’s chemical structure is quite stable, and it rarely decomposes in nature. A completely biodegradable plastic bag must take 300 years to degrade. Polypropylene has a weak chemical structure, and molecular chains can easily break, allowing it to decompose and pass into the next cycle in a harmless state. Within 90 days, a nonwoven shopping bag will degrade completely. Nonwoven shopping bags can also be reused more than ten times, with a contamination level of 10% of plastic bags.
See the complete range of PARK Nonwoven’s Meltblown products or simply contact us to have a quick meeting with our professionals.