Environmentally friendly and breathable wet-laid hydroentangled nonwovens for personal hygiene care with excellent water absorbency and flushability

Abstract

Developing wet-laid papers with a good wet strength remains a longstanding challenge in the papermaking industry. In this study, hydroentanglement, a mechanical bonding technique is developed to consolidate the wet-laid fibre web. The results indicate that wet tensile strength, ductile stretching property, softness, air permeability and water absorbency of the wet-laid fibre web are significantly improved by hydroentanglement. In addition, the abrasion test shows that the dusting off rate of wet-laid fibre web can be effectively reduced through hydroentanglement. Moreover, the disintegration experiment proves that wet-laid hydroentangled nonwovens could be easily dispersed when compared with conventional carded hydroentangled nonwovens. Therefore, the new wet-laid hydroentangled nonwovens can maintain excellent performance in a wet state, showing a great potential for personal hygiene applications.

Tensile Strength and Dispersibility of Pulp/Danufil Wet-Laid Hydroentangled Nonwovens

“…This phenomenon could be ascribed to the fact that the ribbon-like pulp fibers were more prone to bend and crimp when struck by water jets due to their smaller relative flexural rigidity. During the process of hydroentanglement, wet-laid fiber web was impinged by fine high-pressure water jets, which dragged pulp and Danufil fibers to travel from the top surface to the bottom and back to the top surface again with the assistance of reflective water jets (Figure 2h,i) [11].…”

“…For the dispersibility measurement of nonwovens, the mass of samples (50 × 50 mm 2 ) was marked as M, and then samples were put into a beaker with a liquid (physiological saline) volume of 600 mL and stirred for 10 min (400 rpm) by a magnetic stirrer (RS-1DN, AS ONE Corporation, Osaka, Japan), according to the guidelines [11,28]. After stirring, a 12.5 mm perforated plate sieve was used to screen the materials in the beaker.…”

“…The combination of wet-laid and hydroentanglement techniques offers possibilities to produce dispersible wipes with sufficient wet strength [11,12]. The wet-laid technique is similar to conventional papermaking processes, which uses stapled or chopped synthetic fibers (up to 35 mm), rather than pure pulp fibers.…”

“…Haeubl et al reported that hydroentangled nonwovens containing Lyocell fibers provide a skin-friendly feeling for adult incontinence [25]. In particular, our group has reported that pulp/Tencel nonwovens fabricated by wet-laid and hydroentanglement techniques could simultaneously have good dispersibility and enough wet mechanical properties [11,26].…”

Balancing the decomposable behavior and wet tensile mechanical property of cellulose-based wet wipe substrates by the aqueous adhesive

“…In the medical market, another growth area for nonwovens is wet wipes. Although the non-woven is softer than the conventional wet wipes, its softness is still insufficient, meanwhile, the low water retention rate, the strict production conditions, and high cost restrict its further wide application [ 10 , 11 ]. Additionally, most of the wet wipes on the market are made of synthetic chemical fibers, some pulp or the viscose fibers, and the main raw materials for synthetic fibers are polypropylene and polyester.…”