Meltblown Availability Crucial

Techmer PM Develops Technology to Help Meltblown Fabrics Maintain Electrical Charge

Midwest Textiles, Hollingsworth & Vose Partner to Develop Homemade Facemask Kit

Bondex Ramps up Production of Material for PPE & N95 Facemasks

Fraunhofer ITWM Software Predicts Meltblown Fiber Matrix

INDA Mobilizing the Non Wovens Suppliers to Provide more Meltblown Capacity in the U.S

Respirator Masks Media Dominated by 3M in the U.S

INDA Identifies Eight Companies Interested in Investing in U.S. Meltblown Production

Meltblown Capacity in the U.S. Up 23 Percent in 2020

European Capacity Small Compared to China

3M will Produce 2 billion Masks per year with 600 million per year coming from U.S. Plants

INEOS  Built Two New Hand Sanitizer Plants in the U.S. to Provide Hand Sanitizer to Hospitals for Free

Tata Chemicals Supplying Disinfectant

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Meltblown Availability Crucial

The availability of meltblown non wovens or alternative filtration media for masks will be crucial  in the battle against COVID. A significant quantity of virus aerosols are similar in size and flight pattern to cigarette smoke. To protect a wearer an efficient media such as electrostatically charged meltblown  is needed.

In our Alert on May 15th we theorized that half of the world’s 8 billion people should be wearing N95 masks which are reused five times. Therefore 800 million masks need to be produced each day.

N95 masks utilize more meltblown media than do surgical masks. Over the weekend we benefited from subscriber feedback and revised the ratio of meltblown media per mask.

 

We went back to the basics and learned that the weight of meltblown media can vary from less than 20 grams/m2 in some medical masks to well over 80 grams/m2 for N99 efficiency. For a typical 50 in2  (0.03 m2) and 30 gram/m2 mask 1 ton of meltblown will produce 1 million masks with 0.9 grams of meltblown each.  Our original 5 to 1 ratio was based on the Sinopec either or situation where 50% more tons can be converted when making medical mask media. 

These numbers show that we need somewhere between 800 and 2285 tons of meltblowns or equivalent per day to make people safe. We are far from that production level now.  Sinopec has constructed 18 tpy of meltblown capacity for face masks.  This makes it # 1 with 3M at 15 tpy This would be impressive if it were not for the huge need before us. 

Another way to look at it is in terms of total non wovens production. Adding 2285 tpd to the existing 40,000 tpd of all non wovens is not that much of an expansion.

There are many discrepancies in data being reported  from different sources. Also it is necessary to single out production and not use. The daily alerts are filled with relevant information as follows

 

 

There are many Chinese, U.S. and European companies who are developing and commercially offering nanofiber membrane fabrics which do not rely on electrostatic forces and can be washed more times without efficiency deterioration.

Also some of the mask decontamination procedures have demonstrated  the ability to successfully decontaminate masks more than the five times we used in the above estimate.

We are asking our subscribers to help us fill in the blanks to clarify some of the inconsistencies in what is being reported. We will be upgrading these statistics continually.

Techmer PM Develops Technology to Help Meltblown Fabrics Maintain Electrical Charge

As demand surges for facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Techmer PM, LLC, has developed a technology to improve the efficacy of the fabrics used in the production of such masks.

The technology, called the Charge Enhancer, is used during the production of meltblown nonwoven fabrics to help the resulting masks meet the filtration performance requirements set forth by ASTM F2100.

Techmer PM provides its Charge Enhancer in pellet form to producers of meltblown nonwovens, who then add it to polypropylene in a concentration of 4- 5%.

As the extruded nonwoven comes off the production line in roll form, the material is subjected to an electrical charge via an air plasma treatment, also known as “corona” charging (no relation to the coronavirus). The Charge Enhancer technology helps the meltblown fabric enhance and retain the electrical charge imparted by corona charging.

“Without the Charge Enhancer, the mask media would struggle to retain a filtration efficiency of ≥95%,” said Bhushan Deshpande, Techmer PM’s vice president of technology.

Techmer PM is also testing new technology designed to provide more permanent charge-enhancing effects compared to what is currently available. “This newer technology will be well suited for mask manufacturers looking to develop reusable masks,” according to Deshpande.

Midwest Textiles, Hollingsworth & Vose Partner to Develop Homemade Facemask Kit

Midwest Textiles and Hollingsworth & Vose (H&V) are collaborating on a new ready-to-sew face mask kit for the general public. The new collaboration between Midwest and H&V offers an improvement to the everyday consumer by adding a layer of Nanoweb FM to the mask. Nanoweb FM is new filtration media made by H&V, designed for use in homemade face masks.

“H&V is one of the world’s leading producers of filtration media for face masks and many other filtration applications. By partnering with Midwest, and through the development of Nanoweb® FM media, we are able to help support individuals and communities across the country that are struggling to obtain basic levels of protection,” said Mike Clark, Division President at H&V. “Our new Nanoweb® FM media was designed specifically for general use in homemade face masks and can be inserted in a face mask pocket or stitched into a disposable pleated mask.”

Consumers can purchase ready-to-sew face mask kits and Nanoweb® FM media for homemade masks at www.sitnsewfabrics.com. One kit containing 4 masks will cost $24.95, and it is estimated to take 15 minutes to sew and assemble each mask.

Bondex Ramps up Production of Material for PPE & N95 Facemasks

To support the industry demand for PPE materials, Bondex, a producer of carded thermal bond, hydroentangled and needlepunch nonwovens, is dedicating a portion of its capacity to produce materials designed for use in N95 mask construction and materials for use in isolation gowns and other PPE applications.

Bondex develops a polypropylene nonwoven that is used in both mask and isolation gown applications, as well as hydroentangled polyester that is also used in the construction of mask materials.

“We have implemented plans as necessary to continue our supply to our customers though the pandemic crisis,” says Bondex president Brian Little. “We have also recognized the needs in society to help battle this COVID-19 pandemic so we are adding staff in order to supply technical nonwovens for selected PPE applications in order to support these key initiatives.”

Fraunhofer ITWM Software Predicts Meltblown Fiber Matrix

With meltblown technology, nonwoven fabrics are produced directly from granules. A special spinning process in combination with high-speed hot air is used to produce fine-fibered nonwovens with different structures. The fibers are highly stretched by the turbulent air flow. During this process they swirl in the air, become entangled and fall more or less randomly onto a conveyor belt where they are further consolidated – a very complex process. Nonwovens manufacturers around the world are striving to massively increase their production capacities.

This is where Fraunhofer ITWM’s software comes into play. “Our Fiber Dynamics Simulation Tool FIDYST is used to predict the movement of the fibers, their falling and the orientation with which they are laid down on the conveyor belt. Depending on the process settings, turbulence characteristics are generated and thus nonwoven qualities are created that differ in structure, fiber density and strength,” explains Dr. Walter Arne from the Fraunhofer ITWM. He has been working at the institute for years on the simulation of various processes involving fibers and filaments.

The methodology is well transferable to meltblown processes. In these processes, one of the specific features is the simulation of filament stretching in a turbulent air flow – how the stretching takes place, the dynamics of the filaments and the diameter distribution. These are all complex aspects that have to be taken into account, but also the flow field or the temperature distribution. The simulations of the scientists at the Fraunhofer ITWM then provide a qualitative and quantitative insight into the fiber formation in such meltblown processes – unique in the world in this form when it comes to simulate a turbulent spinning process (meltblown).

INDA Mobilizing the Non Wovens Suppliers to Provide more Meltblown Capacity in the U.S

Dave Rousse of INDA provides the Fiber Journal with the latest on INDA efforts to mobilize the meltblown industry. Prior to 2020 (i.e., pre-COVID-19), over 80% of the U.S. demand for medical and surgical face masks (N95 Respirators, N95 Masks, ASTM Level 1,2,3 Masks) was supplied by China and Taiwan. When the COVID-19 situation took hold, both entities withdrew exports of these items to supply their own national demands. The U.S. was left scrambling for these materials for healthcare workers just as healthcare workers were getting inundated with infected patients.

INDA has worked diligently to identify supplies of the much-needed nonwoven material needed to deliver the filtration performance of these medical/surgical masks and respirators. That material is known as meltblown, a polypropylene mat of fine fibers of fixed diameter, pore size and pore density, electrostatically charged to capture the fine particles of bacteria and viruses. Rousse says “ We have successfully pulled into the supply chain incremental tonnage from mothballed machines, pilot lines, and manufacturers producing meltblown for other industries. But it is not enough.

For the U.S. to become self-sufficient in this area, new investment is needed in meltblown manufacturing and that will not be done by the private sector without incentives and without alleviating the risk of China and Taiwan restoring their position as the dominant suppliers of U.S. demand for medical and surgical face masks.

The market for monolithic meltblown (as opposed to meltblown in a composite with spunbond nonwoven, as is used in surgical gowns) is a very specialized and small part of overall nonwoven production in North America. The estimated 2019 U.S. capacity of meltblown is 250,000 tonnes (metric tons). This represents just 4.8% of the 5.2 million tonnes of overall North American nonwoven capacity.

In North America, there are an estimated 75 monolithic meltblown lines in a market with more than 850 nonwoven lines. Of the estimated 2019 meltblown production, 34% was directed towards filtration media (including facemask media and other filtration media), 20% to wipes, 16% to absorbent hygiene, 13% transportation, 8% sorbents, 5% medical/surgical, and 4% apparel. It is estimated that of the monolithic meltblown capacity, prior to the crisis, 78% was used internally by the producing companies (i.e., vertically integrated).

There are 17 companies that have monolithic meltblown lines. Not all of these companies are capable of making meltblown to medical/surgical facemask media specifications, nor are some of the lines configured to be able to sell to the market, as vertically integrated meltblown lines feed the next process, not put fabric in roll form for shipment. Some of the sorbent meltblown producers that use the material internally have or are working on being able to produce facemask media for the market and smaller pilot lines are or will be providing meltblown to the market.

Additionally, within the 1.48 million tonne spunlaid (melted resin) market are spunbond-meltblown composite lines that include meltblown beams. This spunmelt capacity was estimated at 482,000 tonnes in 2019. There are approximately 50 multi-beam lines with meltblown beams in North America. Some of these producers have the capability to produce just meltblown, and at least one is, but the economics of running meltblown only on an SMS line are very poor. A handful of the lines have multiple meltblown beams. There are eight companies with these types of lines in the U.S. and two (3M and Halyard Health) consume all of their material internally for either facemask media or protective medical apparel.

https://fiberjournal.com/achieving-us-self-sufficiency-on-meltblown-fabric-for-facemasks/

Respirator Masks Media Dominated by 3M in the U.S

This is primarily the domain of 3M, with an estimated market share of 80%. 3M is vertically integrated in the U.S. producing nonwovens and converting. Owens & Minor’s Halyard Health (vertical integrated, nonwovens produced in U.S. and converted in Mexico and/or Honduras), Kimberly-Clark Professional (assume vertically integrated and converted in U.S.), and Prestige Ameritech (converter) also produce these types of mask
.

INDA Identifies Eight Companies Interested in Investing in U.S. Meltblown Production

The major U.S. producers are 3M, Cardinal Health (typically U.S sourced nonwovens converted by Cardinal in Mexico), Halyard Health, Kimberly-Clark Professional, Prestige Ameritech and Gersten. There are several companies now getting into facemask production, but they cannot make the medical/surgical facemasks without the meltblown media, and they are not able to source this product at this time.

To increase the U.S. production of the much-needed meltblown fabric, new investment is needed in the production machinery. INDA has identified eight companies operating in the U.S. who are interested in investing in monolithic meltblown production under the right conditions of incentives and sustainable demand. Five of these companies are U.S.-owned; three are U.S. companies with foreign ownership.  All have the nonwoven operating experience and meltblown technology expertise to get a new machine up and running.  All are concerned that once this crisis is over, the supply chain will revert to Asia based on price.

What is needed to provide confidence to these willing participants is some incentive to make the investment now (grants, partial funding, etc.) and a long-term view of sustained demand to enable the investment to earn-out. Most investments in the nonwovens industry need a three-year payback to be approved.

https://fiberjournal.com/achieving-us-self-sufficiency-on-meltblown-fabric-for-facemasks/

Meltblown Capacity in the U.S. Up 23 Percent in 2020

Brad Kalil of INDA reports that there were eight companies operating 44 composite spunmelt (SMS) lines in the USA, which were already operating to 92% capacity before the new demand arose. SMS lines are a substantial investment decision, and at present, only one new line will start operations in 2021.

A further seventeen companies are operating spunbond lines and at 91% capacity. While one new spunbond line began operating in 2018, two older ones closed down and a third in 2019. A new spunbond line is scheduled to start operations later this year, or in early 2021.

There are a further 24 companies operating 79 specialized meltblown lines, but only eight of the companies are dealing with the consumer market. Some 21 of these lines only began operating in 2018 and three to four have been added this year, in addition to five pilot lines switching to consumer production.

Around 45% of this output is for filter media, which requires finer fibres and electrostatic charging, while the remainder is for applications including transportation and wipes and a range of other niche applications.

Output has already increased by 23% in response to the pandemic, and INDA estimates there is still an estimated 18% of unused capacity. The organization is in dialogue with manufacturers of sorbent products for oil containment applications as one potential source of new materials.

 

European Capacity Small Compared to China

Meltblown production has emerged as an acute bottleneck because Europe has so far relied heavily on Asian suppliers. Assembling and installing the highly specialized meltblowing machines normally takes over a year. Lead times are now being cut to a few months. Textiles lobby group Euratex has set up with the EU an online exchange where companies post offers and requests for services and materials. That shows 32 companies are in need of various mask materials, nine of which are specifically asking for air filter material.

EDANA, an association of mainly European non-woven fabric makers, says meltblown capacity in Europe is limited, while output in Asia is much larger. In China, the No. 1 producer, companies controlled by the central government are expected to reach production of over 70 tonnes of meltblown per day, or more than 25,000 tonnes per year, including new production lines of Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corp, state media Xinhua reported on March 30. That is up from a current daily supply of 42.5 tonnes. According to EDANA , production of overall non-wovens in Europe was 2.8 million tonnes in 2019 but meltblown was only a fraction of that.

3M will Produce 2 billion Masks per year with 600 million per year coming from U.S. Plants

At 350,000 N95 masks per ton of melt blown 3M is using 15 tons of melt blown per day.  Sinopec is the number producer of melt blown mask media at 18 tpd.

 

 

As the novel coronavirus spread throughout China, it became clear that a key piece of protective equipment for health care workers was the N95 respirator mask.

Maplewood-based 3M, as the largest maker of N95s, kicked into high gear to make as many as possible at its Shanghai plant, nine hours east of Wuhan — the epicenter of the disease in China.

As the coronavirus mushroomed across the rest of the world, a global shortage of N95s would develop and test 3M like nothing else in its 118-year history.

Entering the year, only 15% of 3M’s N95s were made for health care customers. Not even four months later, it’s now 90%. That “flip” was done at the same time 3M raced to quadruple production rates, said Denise Rutherford, 3M’s senior vice president for corporate affairs.

The dash to ramp up production involved opening idled production lines and finding factory workers to get them going. It meant overcoming regulatory and trade barriers, changing supply chains on the fly and reconfiguring its distribution.

It wasn’t all smooth — from the operational or public relations standpoints. 3M had to navigate a political firestorm when President Donald Trump decided it was not working fast enough to achieve U.S. needs.

GLEN STUBBE, STAR TRIBUNE

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, held an N95 mask as she visited 3M headquarters in Maplewood in March with Vice President Mike Pence.

Yet industry watchers are lauding 3M as handling it particularly well, even as it was dealing with cratering demand for other stalwart lines such as automotive and industrial products as the economy slowed to unprecedented levels amid the fight to stop COVID-19’s spread.

Coming off a tough year, 3M’s financials are expected to show the same effects seen by other big global companies when 3M reports first-quarter results Tuesday.

“3M is definitely not immune from what is transpiring in the economy, but there are pieces of the economy that are obviously going to see somewhat of a windfall,” Edward Jones analyst Matt Arnold said.

When 3M saw the severity of the coronavirus spread in China in January, the company accelerated its production. It had been down this road before with smaller outbreaks of SARS and H1N1. At that time, 3M bought extra manufacturing equipment for each of its factories around the world that made personal protective equipment (PPE).

As one team worked on distribution, another increased manufacturing. The company has pledged to double its worldwide N95 manufacturing twice since January for a total of 2 billion masks a year.

Yet by January, 3M had maxed out its N95 manufacturing in Shanghai. Weeks later, its mask factories in South Dakota and Nebraska were also running 24/7. The company added equipment in Aberdeen, S.D., to increase capacity.

By the end of June, 3M’s two U.S. plants should be making 50 million N95s a month. Until then, 3M arranged for its factory in China to export more here.

As 3M was working with trade groups, governments and supply-chain experts to figure out how to increase the imports, Trump inserted himself strongly into the situation at the beginning of the month. Trump invoked the Defense Production Act on April 2, ordering 3M to send as many respirator masks as needed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As Roman pushed back, calling “absurd” claims that the company wasn’t doing as much as it could to help U.S. customers, 3M also was negotiating with the Trump administration. Within a week, Trump publicly said he now liked working with 3M and announced a $76 million federal contract with the company.

3M agreed to import 166.5 million masks from China by July. That would help infuse the U.S. with extra supplies until 3M’s South Dakota and Nebraska production rates were high enough.

INEOS  Built Two New Hand Sanitizer Plants in the U.S. to Provide Hand Sanitizer to Hospitals for Free.

The facilities will be located in Jacksonville, near Little Rock Arkansas and Neville Island in Pennsylvania. Each site will produce 1 million bottles of hand sanitizer each month, to help with the nationwide shortage. These will be produced according to World Health Organization specifications, specifically designed to kill bacteria and viruses.

Hand to mouth contamination is one of the main ways that the Coronavirus infects people and there is a critical shortage of hand sanitizers across the USA. Supplies to hospitals will be free of charge for the period of the crisis with the public being able to purchase bottles through retailers.

Ineos has already built hand sanitizer facilities in the UK, Germany and France to supply 4 million bottles across Europe. Many other chemical companies have initiated production of hand sanitizers to help fight COVID-19, including Shell, ExxonMobil, Axalta,  BASF, PPG, Johnson Matthey, Lanxess and many more.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS adds, “INEOS is a company with enormous resources and manufacturing skills. We will supply a million bottles of hand sanitizer a month from each of our new plants in Arkansas and Pennsylvania with the same again in the UK, France and Germany. If we can find other ways to help in the Coronavirus battle, we remain absolutely committed to playing our part.” 

INEOS produces chemicals that go into antibiotics, paracetamol, anti-inflammatories, anti-virals, aspirin and the reagent chemicals that go into testing kits and the plastics going into medical equipment, face masks, ventilators, sterile gloves, eye visors. Their acetonitrile is used in essential pharmaceutical analysis in the procedures necessary to find a vaccine.

Tata Chemicals Supplying Disinfectant

In its fight against the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Tata Chemicals Ltd. (Mumbai, India) has manufactured and supplied more than 1.1 million liters of disinfectant to Gujarat and 480,000 liters to BMC, Maharashtra. To meet the increased requirement of hand sanitizer, Tata Chemicals Ltd’s subsidiary Rallis India has transformed its chemical units at Akola and Ankleshwar and has produced and supplied 75,300 liters of hand sanitizer across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana and Karnataka.

In line with Tata Group’s initiatives, Tata Chemicals and its units have adopted a two-pronged approach to tackle this unprecedented situation. One intervention focuses on supporting the government and the other one on supporting the local communities.

Through Self Help Groups (SHGs) and artisans associated with the Company’s Okhai initiative, Tata Chemicals has produced about 73000 masks in Mithapur and Cuddalore, which are being distributed to police, local community, drivers, security workers and more. Through Okhai, the company has also connected SHGs making masks across India and made available 87,000 masks for open-market suppliers. Besides supplying the life-saving masks, this effort has also supported the livelihood of more than 275 women.

Ms Alka Talwar, Chief of CSR and Sustainability at Tata Chemicals, said, “Following the Tata Group’s philosophy of putting the community ahead of business, we are extending our full support to the government and the local people. It’s a fight and we are #InItTogether. Tata Chemicals is committed to supporting the society through science-led intervention with a human touch.”