Spun bond and melt blown nonwovens have an increasing growth in recent years. Melt blown non woven is hard to purchase in the year 2020. Because it’s the main material of medical face masks. Do you know how nonwoven machine manufactures spunbond and meltblown nonwoven ? They are similar in most processes, but very different in fiber strectching. So the structure and properties of the fibers and fabrics are totally different. Processes of Spun bond and melt blown are sometimes combined for a particular application . For examaple, surgical clothes and diapers request SMS fabric. Let’s take a look at the production process of non woven machine.

Raw material
Both polyester and polypropylene are ideal raw material for nonwoven making. Polyester has a higher request for nonwoven machine. While polypropylene is workable for all nonwoven machines.

Polyester is widely used in spun bond or meltblown nonwoven production. Its fabric is strong, lightweight, dyeable and wrinkleless. It also has property of good wash wear. Polyester is extracted from petrochemical sources. So it’s inexpensive.

Polypropylene is in white color and semi-crystalline. It usually appears as chips or granules. Polypropylene has become the main material when it was first used in nonwoven area in the 1970’s. Polypropylene has made itself as a very crucial industrial and household fiber. But it performs less impact in the apparel sector. Because people don’t like its waxy hand feel. It’s also not outstanding in dyeability. In the chemical industries, Polypropylene nonwovens have a sharp increase in recent years. They are used as filter fabric for wet filtration. Industrial applications also include medical and surgical disposables.
Nonwoven manufacturing process
Spun bond and melt blown are the most common methods to produce polymer-laid nonwoven fabrics. This is a process of melting and spinning.

Raw material PP comes into dosing equipment
Dosing equipment consists of a main material tank, two ingredient tanks, a mixing tank and a suction device. Main material and ingredients can be prepared as per a certain ratio. They transports from ground to the third floor by automatic equipments

Extruding raw material into melt
Extruder machine starts melting when PP chips and additives arrive. This machine has 8 heating zones. Standard sizes of the inside screw are φ135 mm, φ150 mm and φ170 mm. Rotary speed ranges from 20 to 80 r/min. The max extruding capacity is 450kg/h.

Extruding recycle nonwoven into melt
Recovery scrap is extruded into melt by recycle extruder machine. The structure is same as main extruder. It has 4 heating zones. The inside screw size is φ105 mm.

Filter impurities from the melt
There are impurities in the melt when it outflows from extruder machine. In order to make the melt clean, we use vertical filter to remove the impurities. In fact, there are two filters in this device. Each filter works independently. When one filter becomes dirty, just turn the steering wheel, then the other filter works instead of the previous one. It doesn’t need to power off the whole nonwoven machine.

Control the supply speed of melt flow
In order to work smoothly, spin pump is used to control the supply speed. It ranges from 200cc,250cc and 300cc with corresponding cloth width 1600mm,2400mm and 3200mm.

Spinning system
The melt in spin pump flows to the spinning box. Filaments are blown out through spinneret plate. There are thousands of holes on the spinneret. The sizes are from Φ0.2mm to Φ0.6mm.

Filaments stretching system
Spun bond and melt blown are totally different in stretching filament.

Spunbond stretching
The quench air ducts supply the conditioned air to cool the filaments from the spinneret. It’s located below the spinneret block. Filaments are stretched into long and thin fiber when they cool down. This equipment includes upper drawing channel, lower drawing channel, and diffusion channel.

Meltblown stretching
Melt-blowing method uses high-speed heat airflow to rapidly stretch the melt into filaments. This fiber is short and thin. The process flow is more simple than spun bond, but less durable.

Forming web
Fibers are separated into bundles of many filaments. They lay down on a net to form a web. The web former includes a drive system for web forming belt, a suction channel device, a sealing device, and so on.

Calendar
The web is then bonded thermally and mechanically. Then perform special in-line processing such as calendar processing.

Wind and cut nonwoven fabric
Winder machine is used for winding the fabric on rolls. It includes two plain rolls and two pneumatic rolls. With cutting machine, fabric can be cut into the required width.

Now you should know how to make nonwoven. Hope it will do you some help when purchasing nonwoven production line. But how to judge the quality of nonwoven machine? Be frank, it’s not as easy as other goods. Because this is a huge production line composed of many machines. Here is a simple way. Just check the quality of nonwoven fabric manufacturing process ​by nonwoven machine.

How to distinguish the quality of non-woven fabric
How to distinguish the quality of non-woven fabric? Do you know the way to identify the quality when nonwoven machines produce fabrics ? I will introduce you some tips as below.

Seeing
Select a random sample of 2 meter nonwoven fabric. Inspect the surface toward the light for any disqualified signs such as broken fibers or lumps. Observe if the cloth surface is shiny. Then spread the non-woven fabric on a flat ground. The non-woven fabric with good uniformity has no undulations.

Hand feel
Hand feeling is another simple but efficient way to identify the quality of nonwoven fabrics. The good cloth is soft and close to the real knitted fabric. The general fabric is relatively hard. It has a poor hand feel.

Exposure to the sun
Expose it to the sun for one week If time allows. There will be obvious changes after 7 days. Poor quality non-woven fabrics cannot withstand the ultraviolet rays of the sun. It’s as easy as paper to tear by hand