Process for manufacturing nonwoven web material
AssigneeThe Procter & Gamble Company
InventorsArman Ashraf, Ronald Thomas Gorley
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Abstract
A nonwoven web material including fibers formed of a polyolefin and a polyester is disclosed. The fibers may include fine fibers produced by, for example, a meltblowing process. The polyolefin may be polypropylene and the polyester may be polylactic acid. The polylactic acid may be obtained and included by recycling scrap nonwoven material containing a polylactic acid component, hydrolyzing the polylactic acid component to reduce its viscosity, blending the hydrolyzed polylactic acid with a polyolefin resin, and melt-spinning the blended material to form fibers. A related process is disclosed.
Claims4
A process for manufacturing a nonwoven web including recycled material, comprising the steps of:
- spinning spunbond fibers comprising polylactic acid and polypropylene, and accumulating the spunbond fibers to form a first deposited layer;
- spinning monocomponent fine fibers having an average diameter of 0.10 μm to 10 μm from meltblowing resin comprising virgin polypropylene resin, and accumulating the fine fibers to form a second deposited layer;
- joining the first deposited layer and the second deposited layer to form a layer combination;
- calender bonding the layer combination to form a nonwoven web;
- collecting scrap material comprising portions of the nonwoven web;
- mechanically dividing the scrap material;
- hydrolyzing polylactic acid contained in the divided scrap material to form recyclable scrap material;
- blending the recyclable scrap material with the meltblowing resin during said fine fibers spinning step, and thereby recycling the scrap material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.