Bast fiber, fabrics made therewith, and related method of manufacture
AssigneeBast Fibre Technologies Inc.
InventorsJason David Finnis, Wade Edsel Chute
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention relates to methods for providing crimped bast fibers which may include providing an input of bast fibers, adjusting the moisture content of the bast fibers to be in the range of about 10% to about 40% by weight to form a fiber mat, and contacting the fiber mat with a pair of heated crimping rolls to provide crimped bast fibers having a crimp of about 1 to about 10 crimps per centimeter. The invention further provides for a nonwoven fabric comprising at least 5% of the crimped bast fibers. The crimping of the bast fibers in these nonwoven fabrics is beneficial to forming a drylaid, airlaid or wetlaid nonwoven fabric that has desirable properties related to performance in a variety of nonwoven product applications.
Claims18
A method of forming crimped bast fibers, comprising:
- providing an input of bast fibers;
- adjusting the moisture content of the bast fibers to be in the range of about 10% to about 40% by weight;
- forming the bast fibers into a fiber mat;
- and
- contacting the fiber mat with a pair of heated crimping rolls to provide crimped bast fibers having a crimp of about 1 to about 10 crimps per centimeter, the pair of heated crimping rolls comprising a first crimping roll being positioned proximate to the top side of the fiber mat and opposing a second crimping roll positioned proximate to the bottom side of the fiber mat.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.