Dust-free paper and spunlace non-woven fabric for wipes

According to a survey conducted by the American Nonwoven Industry Magazine, after 1999, nearly 40 kinds of wipe test towel products came out. In North America, the wipe wipe market used 2.1 million ms of nonwovens in 2001, valued at $ 400 million, an increase of 8%. "It is expected to reach 7.7 million by 2006. In 2002, the proportion of children wipe wipes sold in the US It decreased by 5.8%, and the sales proportion of non-child wipes increased significantly by 16%. The wipes include Dry Wipes and Wet Wipes. As a non-woven product, wet wipes were mostly children ’s products. Called "Babywipes", it is not only limited to children's use, but has been widely used in adult, industrial and other aspects, including children's wipes, industrial wipes, Car Wipes, floor wipes, life wipe Towels and so on.
Dry wipe test towels are generally made of polyester as a raw material for easy vacuuming, so most of these non-woven fabric products are produced by needle punching or spunlacing. At present, the non-woven fabrics used in wet wipes are mainly clean paper and spunlace non-woven fabrics.
Dust-free paper is a special non-woven fabric formed by using wood pulp as the raw material, using airflow to lay the net, and then consolidating. According to the different forms of bonding, it is divided into three varieties: glued paper, integrated paper and heat-sealed paper.
Glued paper and heat-sealed paper are used in different products. Under normal circumstances, glued paper will not dust, suitable for manufacturing products that directly contact the human body, such as dry / wet wipes. However, heat-sealable paper will dust a little, so it is mostly used for making the inner core layer of absorbent materials such as women's sanitary napkin core layer. Some Chinese manufacturers of heat-sealing paper claim that the heat-sealing paper produced can be dust-free and comparable to glued paper, but it has never been recognized by the market. Because the requirements of wet wipes are not only not dust, but also other indicators such as hand feel, strength and moisture absorption performance. China's wipes products are mainly to meet the international market, and the consumer market of foreign wipes has been occupied by glued paper, it is not easy to switch to even dust-free heat-sealed paper.

In China, heat-sealed paper occupies more than 80% of the market and is mainly used in sanitary napkin production. According to incomplete statistics. China has about 30 dust-free paper production lines, of which a single heat-sealed paper production line may account for 90% in number, and its equipment is made in China. The glued paper and integrated paper production lines are dominated by imported equipment. According to the websites of Danish M & J and Dan-web, the world's most prestigious manufacturers of clean paper production lines, most of the foreign clean paper production lines with glue bonding technology account for the vast majority, such as the 23 production lines manufactured by M & J. In addition to the three lines that keep the bonding method confidential, only one line is a single heat-sealed paper production line, accounting for only about 5%, and the glued paper production line accounts for the vast majority (see Table 1). In fact, the chemical composition of spunlace non-woven fabric is the same as that of clean paper raw materials, they are all cellulose fibers, and their performance is basically similar. However, the hot air method non-woven fabric, hot-rolled method non-woven fabric and spun-bonded method non-woven fabric are mostly made of PP and PE raw materials, which are water-resistant polymer materials. Water-based. Compared with this, clean paper and spunlace nonwoven fabrics use cellulose fibers as raw materials, have the properties of natural fibers, and have better hygroscopicity and feel than other nonwoven fabrics. Compared with the clean paper, the two have obvious cost advantages. When the market is fiercely competitive, cost and price competition will be the main, which will lead to an increase in the proportion of clean paper.
If the unit weight of non-woven fabric is the same, 45g / m2, the price of spunlace cloth is 24 yuan / kg (1.08 yuan m2), and the price of clean paper is 18 yuan / kg (0.81 yuan / M 2, the The raw material cost ratio of spunlace nonwoven fabric is 4: 3.
In addition, under the same unit quality conditions, dust-free paper is thicker than spunlace non-woven fabric, and consumers will love it more. On the other hand, if the thickness is the same, you can use a lower unit mass of dust-free paper instead of spunlace nonwoven fabrics, and use dust-free paper for wet wipes, which has a lower cost and a more competitive advantage, so use dust-free The cost-effectiveness of paper is quite obvious.
In China, the sales price of a multi-pack wet wipes factory is only 0.3-OUSD, while in foreign supermarkets it can be sold for 2-3USD, so the wet wipes industry has huge profit margins. Even if the raw material cost is slightly expensive, the raw material cost of the wet wipes is negligible relative to the selling price, which is acceptable to the industry. In this case, many foreign brands use spunlace cloth.
Some other processes of non-woven fabric products are also wiping towels for strength, three-dimensional stability and more like textiles. PG1 believes that due to the advanced technology of spunlace cloth, which provides three-dimensional stability and increases its performance advantages, the performance characteristics of spunlace cloth more meet the needs of consumers. These properties include multiple use, cleanliness and absorption.
DuPont emphasizes that the performance of spunlace cloth can create a more ecologically positioned product by combining a wide range of raw materials. They believe that "spunlace cloth is a completely different thing, because people can choose a variety of raw materials to produce spunlace cloth, which gives the industry more ways to adapt to products and markets."
On the other hand, clean paper producers emphasize the value advantages of clean paper materials. The cost is generally 15% lower than that of spunlace cloth in Europe and America. The two materials compete while sharing an increasing market share. Dust-free paper has more cost advantages. Buckeye believes that the results of new research and development will make the dust-free paper wipes now produced have the same performance as high-priced products at a low price level. New technology can make Buckeye's products softer, stronger, three-dimensional stable and more absorbent.
Spunlace fabric producers challenge the dust-free paper manufacturers about cost issues, "When a product does not have a unique feature, there is always a cost problem", Italy Tenote, the company believes