A comparative study of nonwoven fabrics made with two distinctly different forms of greige cotton lint

Abstract

Two sets of nonwoven fabrics of nominal density, 80 g/m2, have been produced on the pilot plant equipment comparable to that used in commercial production, using two different forms of greige (non-bleached) cotton lint. One was regular cotton taken from a randomly picked classical bale and the other was mechanically pre-cleaned cotton produced by a well known US cotton producer and ginner. The fabrics were produced by using a pre-needling, needlepunch system and a hydroentanglement system. Some of the fabric in each set was scoured only and some was both scoured and bleached. All the fabrics were tested for a comparison of their typical physical and mechanical properties, which, along with the fiber and fabric processing metrics, are discussed in this article. The information obtained from this comparative study has shown that although both the regular and the pre-cleaned greige cottons can be satisfactorily processed on the conventional cotton opening, cleaning and carding equipment to ultimately produce acceptable nonwoven fabrics, the pre-cleaned cotton may be processed without the traditional cotton cleaning/carding equipment that is not available at almost all nonwovens manufacturing entities today. A ‘nonwovens card’ (i.e., without the revolving flats) should be adequate to efficiently card the pre-cleaned greige cotton, since the latter is indeed very clean to start with.