An Investigation on Recycling of Blanket Trimmings Through Needle-punched Nonwovens

Abstract

Utilization of recycled fibers in nonwovens has been an attractive issue for researchers considering environmental and economic benefits. In this study blanket trimmings and mechanically recycled fibers were blended and softly needle-punched to be used as interlayers of traditional needle-punched nonwovens. The outer layers from polypropylene (at four different mass per unit areas), from recycled polyester (at four different mass per unit areas), from mechanically recycled fibers (at three mass per unit areas) and the control groups were produced by classical needle-punching at two needle-punch densities. The recycled interlayers consisting of blanket trimmings and mechanically recycled fibers and are then fixed by needle-punching again, between the two twin layers of needle-punched nonwovens of those three types of raw materials. Control groups did not include the recycled interlayers. Hence, three layered end products were obtained. Tensile characteristics of the end products were evaluated in terms inter layer ratio of the end products, raw material type of outer layers and needle-punching density through standard test methods. The results were statistically analyzed in SPSS 23.0-One way ANOVA. In the conclusion, blanket trimmings were successfully entangled to the end products as interlayers and it was observed that the strength of the nonwovens decrease with the higher recycled interlayer ratio and increase with needle-punch density.