Papermaking mat and method for producing paper making mat

Abstract

The present invention provides a papermaking mat that is less likely to crack even when wound around a base material and that has a sufficiently high surface pressure. The papermaking mat of the present invention is a papermaking mat containing: inorganic fibers including inorganic fibers forming fiber bundles each formed from 10 or more of the inorganic fibers entangled and twisted together, and the inorganic fibers forming no fiber bundles, wherein the fiber bundles have an average length of more than 5 mm, and when the papermaking mat is subjected to fiber opening by a fiber opening method for papermaking mats described below to obtain a slurry containing the inorganic fibers, the inorganic fibers in the slurry have a bulk specific gravity in water of 0.012 to 0.035 g/cm3. In the fiber opening method for papermaking mats, a papermaking mat is heat-treated at 600° C. for one hour; 5.0 g of fibers is weighed out from the papermaking mat while loosening the fibers, and the fibers are put in a container holding 400 cc of water; the fibers are stirred using a stirrer at a rotation speed of 1000 rpm for 10 minutes and then transferred to a graduated cylinder container, and water is added to make a total volume of 500 cc; and after standing for 30 minutes, the height of settled fibers is read, and the bulk specific gravity in water is calculated using the following calculation formula (1): bulk specific gravity in water (g/cm3)=5.0 (g)/volume of settled fibers (cm3) (1).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.