Nonwovens - An Irreplaceable Warrior at The Pandemic Frontli

Worldwide demand on nonwovens used in healthcare applications and personal protective equipment (PPE) has surged since the world first learned of a novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, late last year. While cases climbed up in China, nonwovens manufacturers and converters already began shifting capacity in Asia to meet demand for nonwoven-based products such as face masks and personal protective apparel (PPE). When the virus that causes Covid-19 began to spread rapidly in other areas of the world, governments and industry stakeholders focused on securing new local production of PPE and the materials that make them.

Freedonia, a leading international industrial research company, says Covid-19 pandemic is transforming the global market for a number of nonwovens-based PPE. As demand for these products continues to soar, nonwovens producers are investing in new machinery and expanding capacity in order to avoid the supply shortfalls seen at the pandemic’s onset and allow the market to renormalize.

Global demand for meltblown nonwovens, which, among other things, is used as a critical filtration layer in N95 masks, is expected to increase over 12% in 2020 in value terms, according to data furnished by Freedonia. Surging demand for meltblown used in crucial medical supplies like masks caused supply shortages and price hikes that were offset by losses in the large automotive filter market, as the need to combat the spread of Covid-19 boosted use of protective gear while leading to shutdowns of many automotive manufacturing facilities.

Freedonia reports that global demand for spunbond nonwovens is also experiencing major shifts in 2020, also due to the pandemic. As with meltblown, the market for spunbond webs is being greatly impacted by a surge in face mask demand and changes in the supply of and demand for other key end-use products.

In value terms, global demand for spunbond nonwovens in 2020 is expected to remain similar to 2019 levels despite some declines in volume demand, Freedonia reports. Sales of spunbond nonwovens used in manufacturing of motor vehicles or in construction applications have dropped due to economic uncertainty and stay-at-home orders. However, Freedonia reports that demand for spunbond nonwovens used for medical and hygiene products surged in the first half of 2020. Spikes in demand resulted from increased need for medical masks and other crucial medical supplies such as PPE. Spunbond is also benefiting from elevated nonwoven wipes demand, as the pandemic has driven demand for surface disinfecting nonwoven wipes and other healthcare nonwoven wipes.

Freedonia expects that demand will remain elevated for a time until long-neglected and currently depleted emergency stocks are adequately filled. “The concept of obtaining these products on a just-in-time basis has been shown to be a failure in a time of high global need,” Mapes-Christ says.

Several months into the pandemic, healthcare workers on the front lines, especially in the U.S., are still facing shortages of PPE including respirator masks and isolation gowns—a problem many expected to be resolved at this point. In the next few pages, Nonwovens Industry takes a look at how manufacturers are working to alleviate these shortages amid the ongoing pandemic.

Berry Invests Globally
Berry Global, the world’s largest nonwovens producer, started making moves early on in the pandemic in order to increase its supply of materials used for PPE around the world.

This was further augmented by the planned startup of a new R5 Spunbond asset in Nanhai, China, the new Spunlace asset in Mooresville, NC and commercializing two meltblown pilot line assets in the U.S. Berry invested further, to support the global face mask demand, by approving three new meltblown lines in Europe and one new line for LATAM, along with nine face mask converting lines deployed around the world.

The new Spunlace production line in Mooresville, NC, began running at full production rates in March, providing an incremental 17,000 metric tons of annual capacity. The Spunlace asset is focused on various nonwoven wipes applications serving the healthcare, hygiene, household cleaning, foodservice and industrial markets.

In April, the company announced the conversion of its pilot line in Waynesboro, VA, into a commercial operation. The line makes Berry’s proprietary Meltex meltblown material for both surgical masks and N95 and N99 respirators. This added capacity will allow Berry to make materials for 200 million masks annually. Berry has also converted a pilot line in Old Hickory, TN.

Also in the U.S. Berry is expanding its spunmelt nonwoven capacity in Statesville, NC, where it will install $8 million of new equipment and enhance existing production lines, allowing it to further optimize its production of spunmelt applications used in the fabrication of medical gowns, face masks, and other personal protection equipment, as well as those used in hygiene applications. The additional equipment and expanded capacity are expected to be operational in December 2021.

Meanwhile in Europe Berry advanced its investment in an additional specialty meltblown asset in France to produce high-efficiency filtration media serving the EMEIA markets. The plant will bring an additional annual capacity of 550 tonnes of N95 material and 365 tonnes of N99 material to the market, which will serve the EMEA economic area.

Berry is also expanding its global Meltex meltblown capacity with a new asset in Berlin, Germany, that will support the growing global face mask demand. The line is expected to be operational in October 2020.

At the end of June, Berry announced the investment of a new meltblown asset at one of its U.K. facilities to increase capacity of material necessary in the production of European-standard Type IIR and N99-equivalent FFP3 masks. The investment was a result of a collaboration with The Medicom Group, a manufacturer of medical and respiratory masks, to design a manufacturing solution and guarantee the supply of nonwoven fabric intended for use in producing hundreds of millions of face masks annually as part of Medicom’s agreement with the British Government. The masks will be manufactured and sold under Medicom’s European Kolmi brand.

In addition to these European investments, Berry launched an extension of its Synergex range of products, Synergex ONE, a new media for face mask applications. Developed to initially meet the new face mask categories for general population, the aim is to quickly bring the media up to EN 14683:2019 standards for surgical masks. Synergex ONE provides a multilayer nonwoven composite product in a single sheet, as an alternative to traditional face mask layer structures. This new material is manufactured in Europe and serve the European market.

Meanwhile, Berry’s first meltblown asset in South America is expected to start up in the March 2021 quarter. The investment will bring more than 400 metric tons of Meltex meltblown nonwoven material to the region, which will enable production of more than 500 million surgical-grade masks per year. The new asset will be placed at an existing Berry production facility in South America.

Ahlstrom-Munksjö Ramps Up Production
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ahlstrom-Munksjö’s manufacturing plants serving the medical business have been experiencing unprecedented levels of demand across the entire medical product portfolio, according to Lionel Bonte, VP Medical Business Ahlstrom-Munksjö.

The company’s medical and filtration businesses have tripled its legacy face mask capacity by redistributing allocations, looking outside its traditional manufacturing footprint, repurposing existing products originally not meant for face mask applications, outsourcing non-essential businesses, qualifying external like capabilities that were available and restarting dormant assets, he adds.

These recent efforts include the production of face mask materials on a fine fiber line normally used for industrial filtration materials at its site in Turin, Italy. The technology is unique, generating good protection and breathability for medical use, and approved as a surgical mask. The advantage of this technology compared to the commonly available electrostatically charged material is its durability. Protection efficiency of electrostatically charged materials is lost overtime when humidity gets in contact with the filter media, whereas protection efficiency of a mechanical filter media remains intact over time, according to the company.

After receiving its first orders in March, the Turin plant expanded capacity through line improvements and production optimization and it plans to produce face mask material equivalent to over 60 million surgical face masks per month, adding up to a total of 500 million face masks through the remainder of 2020.

Ahlstrom-Munksjö also extended the production of face mask materials to a line normally used for industrial filtration materials at its Tampere plant in Finland. Currently the material is well suited for lighter fabric face masks in civil activities. Droplets test shows that the media has efficiency above 90% at three microns and above 85% at one micron, which is close to a surgical face mask requirement.

Alongside these moves the nonwovens producer launched the Extia Protect product range for face mask applications. The Extia Protect portfolio includes filtration layers, cover stocks, lace media and reinforcement layers. Each component of the range has been designed to meet specific requirements of different types of masks including respiratory masks, surgical masks and civil masks. The face mask offering is produced on a global industrial platform consisting of plants in Europe, North and South America and Asia, giving the company the required capacity to meet the regional demand.

With focus on the PPE market for such a long period of time and across all regions, the company acknowledges that the pandemic has exposed a lot of weaknesses in the value chain, and it anticipates that the market landscape will change dramatically for the years to come.

While demand for PPE materials remains high now, the company does not foresee a sudden plunge but rather a slow correction in demand as time goes on. “Due to our flexible asset and capacity allocation approach during the pandemic, we will be able to return to normal asset utilization past this crisis maximizing our existing capacity in the same way we did prior to the Covid-19 pandemic,” says Bonte.

Jacob Holm Reports Surge in Demand
Jacob Holm also reacted quickly to the need for medical protective fabrics during the Covid-19 crisis. In May Jacob Holm reported a 65% increase in demand for its medical-grade Sontara nonwovens, with two of its sites reporting record production levels in April. Meanwhile the company announced in June it would invest in new capacity for medical nonwovens and critical cleaning nonwoven wipes at its Sontara production facility in Asturias, Spain. The investment includes a significant upgrade of an existing production line to increase capacity by 60% and add new line capabilities.

The Sontara Asturias site saw a significant uptick in demand for these items related to the pandemic and to date has responded with more than one million masks worth of nonwoven materials in donations alone. In addition to these efforts, the company has been donating material to local charity organizations that have volunteer workforces producing masks for local businesses and providing meals and other support to essential workers across the globe.

Johns Manville Gets Into Masks, Gowns
Johns Manville (JM), which specializes in technical nonwovens in markets such as roofing and battery separation, worked quickly to develop and launch products that can improve the safety of people in potential direct contact with the Covid-19 virus. The company’s experience allowed it to quickly develop products for healthcare applications.

In April, JM’s plant in Richland, MS, began making nonwoven filtration media used in the manufacture of face masks needed to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
According to JM, most nonwoven production of face masks was abandoned in the U.S. many years ago and moved to Asia. Given the shortage of face masks in the U.S. and Europe, JM’s Engineered Products business decided to build on its existing capabilities and help fill the market demand.

JM media meets or exceeds Level 1 BFE 95% (Bacterial Filtration Efficiency) and VFE (Viral Filtration Efficiency) requirements. These results were verified by an FDA-registered national laboratory.

JM also shifted production recently by making nonwoven fabrics for medical gowns at its plant in Spartanburg, SC. The new polyester spunbond nonwoven is designed for the production of Level 3 medical gowns.