Thickness and Compression Behavior of a Nonwoven Produced by Melt-Blowing a Polypropylene/Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Fiber Mix

Abstract

In the present study, we fabricated nonwoven fabrics by melt-blowing (MB) with mixing polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polypropylene (PP) fibers on a spinning line to improve the bulkiness and resistance under compression. That is, both PP and PET were simultaneously extruded from three nozzle holes laid down alternately, and they formed fiber state and then entangled each other during the whipping process. We investigated the effects of the MB manufacturing conditions, i.e., the hot air flow rate, the PET fiber fraction, and the presence or absence of annealing, on the compressibility of the obtained nonwovens. The fiber diameter histograms tended to split into two peaks as the PET fiber fraction increased. A larger PET fiber fraction produced a thicker nonwoven. Also, the compressibility increased, but the compression recovery rate did not. Annealing increased the thickness but decreased the compression recovery rate. Although thick fibers were increased by PET fiber mixing, they had insufficient rigid to resist compression. The decrease in the recovery rate can be explained by the brittleness of the PET fibers caused by crystallization of the non-oriented fibers during annealing.