Our Experience In Processing Greige Cottons for Certain Nonwoven Base Materials

Traditionally bleached cotton has been used for the production of nonwoven fabrics. One primary reason for this scenario was that there was no greige cotton fiber alternative that would meet the required cotton cleanliness needs of the nonwovens manufacturers.  However, today, there are several versions of pre-cleaned greige cotton fibers commercially available, which efficiently can meet the stated  needs of existing nonwovens roll goods manufacturers. In other words, no cotton cleaning equipment is needed for production of cotton-based nonwovens, using these pre-cleaned cottons. Furthermore, a pre-cleaned cotton also has the advantage of more efficient web production compared to that of a bleached cotton. his presentation will show in detail how a pre-cleaned cotton can be efficiently used in the needlepunch and hydroentanglement nonwovens production systems to produce nonwoven base fabrics for certain end-use applications. The properties of the fibers and fabrics processed in this study will also be discussed. Notably, the test data have revealed that some of the greige cotton's natural waxes (heavy hydrocarbons) are also removed during hydroentangling of the (greige) cotton web at a certain hydraulic energy level, which, in turn, makes the nonwoven fabric partly hydrophilic (without the fabric bleaching), which obviously could eliminate the need for cotton fiber or fabric scouring and bleaching for some nonwoven materials and end-use products.