Egelsbach, October 12, 2007

ITMA 2007 Review Fleissner - Textile Machines

The 15th International Textile Machinery Exhibition is over.

Never before have visitors from so many different countries - 149 in all - come to an ITMA exhibition.

Also at the Fleissner stand, which was described by callers as being one of the most attractive, interesting and competent stands (see Fig. 1a), we could welcome visitors from all continents and from nearly all countries.

Fig. 1a

We would like to summarize here the highlights of our exhibition stand, and important information gained from the many talks with our customers and reflecting the trends and future market requirements.

Nonwovens machines

Fleissner has introduced for this ITMA a new element in its presentation: Not only have the nonwovens manufacturers been updated on the machinery and technologies for production and bonding of nonwovens, but we also showed them the new products made on the appertaining machinery such as Fleissner AquaJet and Fleissner SteamJet.

Apart from the machines exhibited by us, we had therefore installed a large innovation and inspiration center on our stand (see Fig. 1b) where products for hygiene, sanitary and medical applications could be seen beside products for technical nonwovens, military garments and others.

Fig. 1b

Our customers were thrilled with this presentation, which was unique in the nonwovens section of the exhibition, and the inspirations it offered so that, as a result, our technical center in Egelsbach with its trial machines is now booked out for weeks. The interested nonwovens producers intend to run their own trials here with the new products presented at the ITMA and introduce them into their markets.

Important information for the nonwovens industry

1. The Fleissner-AquaJet for spunlaced nonwovens shown at our stand (Fig. 2) has already been designed for the new nonwovens generations. This machine was sold for the production of innovation fabrics to Korean company ANT NanoTechnic, who will use it to introduce into the global markets completely new products for synthetic leather, sportswear, functional fabrics, nanofiber webs and applications in the shoe industry, filter production, automotive interior fittings and furniture industry. The Fleissner spunlace technology is used for bonding spunbonds and staple fiber webs from splittable conjugate fibers, and also fabrics or knit goods with one layer of nanoweb produced by electrospinning, which results in unique product qualities.

Fig. 2

2. The visitors were also strongly interested in using Fleisssner-AquaJet technology for new filtration webs for hot gas filtration in order to get distinctly improved products compared with conventional mechanical needling.

Customers value the following advantages of the spunlace technology:

• It is possible to fabricate products of lower weights because higher strengths are achieved compared to mechanical needling; this saves fiber costs.
  
  
• Much higher production speeds can be achieved compared to mechanical needling while completely avoiding fabric drafting; this allows more economic production.
  
  
• There are technological advantages such as greatly improved filtration efficiency; various web densities are possible over the web cross-section, which results in longer filter service life and easier cleaning.
  
  
• No pores are formed as caused by mechanical needling and allowing the penetration of filtering particles. This is excluded by the AquaJet technology.

Customers have confirmed to us that the technical details and the pressure ranges of the jet heads make it possible to achieve filter qualities which more than fulfill the tightened official regulations that soon will become effective. With the AquaJet, a technology can be made available to the industry today which is suitable both for today's and future generations of filtration webs.

3. The three-dimensional web structures and web perforation types possible with the new hydro-embossing drum shell offer completely new ideas for the wiping cloth sector.

When designing the AquaJet, special importance was attached to economic production at high production speeds and energy savings by optimized drum shells and jet strips.

4. There has been a virtual rush of visitors from the nonwovens sector to see the web composites with pulp (cellulose fibers) shown at our stand for all kinds of applications in the wipes, medical and other sectors.

Such composites are already being produced on several continuous processing lines with Fleissner-AquaJets designed for this purpose with a special arrangement of jet heads and drums and specific water pressures, jet strips and perforated belts.

The quality and economic advantages of these webs will result in a major change from all-staple fiber webs to pulp composites, where composites can be formed both with staple fiber webs and with spunbonds.

The pulp offers absorbency while the spunbond layer provides strength (also in cross direction and even for low web weights) and the carding web layer made from staple fibers ensures a textile hand.

Many customers saw the economic advantages of three-layer composites illustrated by our efficiency calculations evidencing low-cost raw materials and profitable operation.

The technology used allows pulp to be added both as loose fluff pulp and as paper tissue rolls.

How can you save costs in wipes production?

Example: (based on the current raw material costs)

- Staple fiber web, 50 g/m²
70%/30% viscose/PET
Fiber costs: 2.03 €/kg

- Three-layer composite, 50 g/m²
20%/50%/30% spunbond-pulp-carded PET staple fibers (SPC)
Fiber costs: 1.21 €/kg

Cost ratio 1.21:2.03 = 0.6

Fiber costs saved with composites: 40%

Fibers costs used for calculation:
Viscose: 2.14 €/kg PET: 1.77 €/kg
Spunbond, calendered: 1.90 €/kg
Pulp: 0.60 €/kg

There is no other technology offering our customers so many possibilities for saving more costs and be more competitive.

Naturally, the AquaJet process can also be used for the production of other composites such as CPC, SPS, CP, SP, which were met with interest by many customers.

5. Nonwovens with hollows, so-called hydrospace webs (Fig. 3), were also shown at the Fleissner innovation center, where they attracted great interest. The concept for the Fleissner AquaJet (both as new machine and as addition to existing production lines) is complete and was discussed with the visitors.
This technology (patented by UoL) allows new products to be made for functional textiles.

Fig. 3

6. Apart from using the spunlace technology for upgrading of calendered spunbonds, the combination of spunbonding/spunlacing gains more and more importance also for new technical nonwovens products. The AquaJet shown at the exhibition was designed specifically for splitting of spunbond-conjugate fibers.

It was particularly interesting for our customers that the Fleissner lines for these applications can run at speeds of up to 600 m/min, i.e. at speeds the nonwovens producers already use for the production of calendered nonwovens.

The main advantages which are valued by the customers in the spunbond-spunlace process are considerably higher strengths than those of mechanically needled webs, the possibility of improving the textile characteristics of calendered webs and producing at much higher speeds, even with heavy webs, and thus more economically than with mechanical needling.

7. The Fleissner LeanJet is the right machine for many customers who wish to enter the wipes market with a limited, but still economical production output. Six machines have already been sold and put into operation during the past twelve months. Our talks with customers during the exhibition have confirmed that the market asks for this kind of solutions.

8. The Fleissner SteamJet process was presented for the first time at ITMA. The samples shown at the innovation center were produced on a 1 m wide pilot line at speeds up to 200 m/min and were topic #1 in the nonwovens sector during the exhibition.

Several dozens of companies who visited the Fleissner stand had themselves put on a list for carrying out their own trials at the Fleissner technical center in Egelsbach.

The customers' interest in SteamJet products ranges from very light nonwovens of 20 g/m² from 100% homopolymer via blends of synthetic fibers or bicomponent fibers with natural fibers to 100% natural fibers and heavy webs for technical applications.

All trade visitors agreed that this new process (patented by STFI) will not replace the AquaJet-Spunlace process operating with water jets, but rather will complement the range of spunlace products by a new generation of completely novel web qualities with specific properties.

This has been the first new technology in the nonwovens industry after quite a long time which will influence the market considerably.

The main difference compared to the spunlace process is the superheated pressurized steam used to cause bonding by a combination of fiber entanglement and thermal bonding. Subsequent drying is not required.

Our customers are already considering combinations of water entanglement and Fleissner-SteamJet or hot-air thermofusion and Fleissner-SteamJet. We will describe this process in detail in one of the next issues of this journal.

9. For presentation of the Fleissner activities in the field of general Nonwovens production with various bonding technologies, six large drums with a width of 5.4 m intended for heatsetting and drying lines for geotextiles and roofing felts were exhibited. The complete lines designed for a capacity of 10,000 to/a for a customer in Saudi Arabia were too big, of course, to be shown at the exhibition. Generally, there is a big market for technical nonwovens at the moment, which was also demonstrated by the large number of visitors from this sector.

10. Fleissner is a member of the Trützschler group, which had the biggest stand area at the ITMA with the Trützschler, Erko-Trützschler and Fleissner stands. This also reflects the competence of this group. The proximity of Fleissner stand and Erko-Trützschler stand allowed visitors to view the complete range of nonwovens equipment from fiber opening via carding and needling to bonding and finishing and discuss it with experts from both companies.

Together with the Fleissner equipment for production of man-made fibers, this offered the opportunity to customers to discuss complete projects from polymer to finished nonwovens rolls. And customers did use this opportunity.

More and more of our customers reduce their engineering departments and request the suppliers to offer complete solutions with production know-how, engineering, start-up, service and consulting from a single source. This is already offered by the Trützschler nonwovens group and practiced very successfully.

The Trützschler group's strong presence at ITMA 2007 documented and consolidated its importance as system supplier.

Fleissner machines for textil

At ITMA 2007, Fleissner presented continuous processing lines and finishing systems for loose-stock material, tops and fiber tows, woven and knit goods, continuous printing and dyeing lines for tufted carpets and impregnation lines for tufted and needle-felt wall-to-wall carpets.

The exhibits included an opening line for loose-stock material (cake opener with cotton bleaching cake and hopper feeder) and a laboratory dye liquor applicator for tufted carpet, which was operated continuously with dye liquor.
Both machines met with a great deal of interest, which was reflected by a large number of detailed technical discussions and inquiries.
The visitors to this exhibition were highly competent and with respect to Fleissner's textile sector mainly came from Europe, America, Middle East, North Africa and India.

The main focus in the field of fiber finishing was on the drying line for bleached and dyed fiber material, consisting in a combination of cake opener, hopper feeder and wet opener installed upstream of the perforated drum dryer in order to achieve perfect opening. The perforated drum dryer guarantees high outputs and economical drying. The modular design allows the line to be extended to any desired capacity. The lines are produced for various working widths and capacities from 250 to 2500 kg per hour.
Bleached cotton is used almost exclusively in the sanitary, cosmetics and medical sectors and therefore is processed by the nonwovens industry. As a member of the Trützschler group (Trützschler, Erko-Trützschler, Fleissner), Fleissner can offer complete processing lines from raw cotton to finished product.
In cooperation with Erbatech-Obermaier, Fleissner delivers complete bleaching and dyeing systems for loose-stock material and tops/tows.
In addition, the customers asked for wool top finishing equipment such as anti-felt finishing (Fleissner supplies equipment for various anti-felt finishing systems including chlorine-resin process (e.g. Hercosett®, Dylan®, Basolan® and the newly developed Total Easy Care System-2TM), back-washers, Vigoureux lines, continuous dyeing lines for tops and tows and wool scouring lines.

The components of major interest in tufted carpet finishing were those ensuring improved quality and higher economic efficiency:

• The dye liquor applicator operating on the pouring principle, offering absolutely uniform liquor application (unaffected by fluff or deposits) with a precision of ± 1% for a fabric width of 5 m. Special importance was attached to color changes with minimum color change lengths. Fleissner offers individual solutions here.
  
  
• The carpet steamer in printing and dyeing lines, which ensures high operational safety due to low-level sumps and steam level control, and perfect dyeing by optimum steam distribution.
  
  
• The washing tower with only 1.8 l of water consumption per square meter.
  
  
• The new circular stenter 3000 with a drying capacity increased by 20% and an evaporation rate of 110 kg water/m²h.
• Foam impregnation lines for tufted and needle-felt carpets considerably reduce the water quantity to be evaporated, resulting in tremendous savings of drying costs and clearly increased drying rates.

Fleissner machinery and components make it possible for the industry to produce more quickly and more effectively while saving energy and improving quality.

Fleissner machines for Man-made Fiber Industry

At this year's ITMA in Munich, Fleissner presented production machines for standard and special fibers with many visitors from home and abroad letting themselves be informed on Fleissner's innovations for the production of man-made fibers.

The biggest groups of visitors, geographically speaking, were those from India and Iran. But great interest was also shown by visitors from Central and Eastern Europe and from East Asia and South America.

The focus of discussions was on Fleissner system solutions for highly effective production of staple fibers from recycled polyester bottle flakes. There were many visitors asking for medium-sized equipment allowing them a flexible production of small lots of high-quality spun-dyed fibers. After its successful introduction into the market, the advantages of the Fleissner staple fiber spinning plant based on Fleissner spin pack FL 100 and Lurgi Zimmer® technology were able to convince during discussions.

The exhibited Fleissner SDD drawstand was also met with great interest. This is the first drawstand worldwide for the production of staple fibers with rollers individually driven by torque motors without resolver. The advantages offered by its flexible design and the newly developed control system registered positively with fiber producers from all over the world so that quick success in the market can be expected.