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| Issue date:22/02/2010 |
| ATA Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel - Feb 2010 Issue |
| Source:Journal for Asia on Textile & Apparel |
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| New techniques developed for the military in the US and UK could revitalise the ailing textile coating industry, writes Adrian Wilson |
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| At its Saint-Frères plant in France, Sioen Industries manufactures a special inflatable silo capable of containing 30,000 tons of grain. It is constructed from a single piece of fabric spanning 6,000 square metres and weighing seven tons. When inflated, it has a diameter of 51 metres and is almost 28 metres high |
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Coated fabrics have long been the mainstay of many technical textiles businesses, but inevitably, over the past 18 months, the recession has taken its toll.
The Coating Division of Sioen Industries, for example, reports that in the nine months to the end of September 2009, its sales of 201.1 million euros were down by 34.5% over the same period in 2008.
Sioen Industries, headquartered in Ardooie, Belgium, defines its coating activities as simply "covering a textile substrate with PVC, PU, silicone or other polymers to enhance and alter the physical properties and appearance".
It applies five main coating processes – direct, transfer, online, extrusion and calender – on eight coating lines – five of them in Belgium, two in France and one in Portugal.
The end results are technical textiles with properties such as chemical resistance, anti-stain, vapour and gas resistance, electrical conductivity, water resistance, abrasion resistance, anti-static, printability or fire resistance.
The company also points out that its highly vertically-integrated structure allows it to maintain a lead in the coated textiles market and be independent from third party suppliers.
With four key divisions – Coating, Apparel, Industrial Applications and Chemicals – the company has 4,869 employees at 38 plants and offices in 13 countries. Its spinning mill in Mouscron, Belgium has an annual capacity of 16,000 tons of polyester and/or polyamide hightenacity yarns of 1,100, 550, 280 dtex.
Sioen also has two plants at Mouscron and Kerksken, also in Belgium, with a total of 250 looms manufacturing fabric in widths from 150 to 640cm. At other plants, it produces its own pigment pastes, inks, varnishes and colour dispersions. Recent innovations in this area have seen the production of new flame retardant pigment pastes and also the development of black water-based paste (aqua paste) for the colouring of seats – an application with strict technical specifications.
Coated fabric demand affected by recession
Sioen points out that 25% of its 2008 sales consisted of products that had been developed in the previous five years, while 40% of sales were to markets the company was not active in a decade earlier.
Sioen – which claims to account for over 40% of all European coated fabric capacity – says that during 2009, the key areas where its business has dipped significantly are in the transportation and advertising sectors.
As far as transportation is concerned, tarpaulins and truck covers are the largest application for heavy coated fabrics in Western Europe, with an estimated market volume of 90 million square metres. Before the current recession, this market was on target to grow to 122 million square metres by 2012, but it may now take longer for such growth to be achieved.
For the advertising market, Sioen manufactures printable laminated textiles that are used for publicity banners, and despite strong competition, has achieved a substantial part of its sales to this market in Asia.
But the advertising market has been significantly affected by the recession.
In the USA, for example, graphics and displays was a strong emerging market, involving around 1,750 companies in the USA and Canada, with growth of 10% in 2008.
A decline of 15-20% in sales, however, was experienced in 2009, according to the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI). Nevertheless, the finished product market for this sector in the US is still valued at US$120 million in 2009.
Safety issue concerned with textile architecture
Another key market for coated fabrics has been in textile architecture, but in the US a setback was experienced with the collapse of the Dallas Cowboys stadium at the beginning of May 2009.
"Despite a ruling that the structure collapsed because of the frame, the accident was filmed and appeared across the media, and without doubt will have a significant impact on the industry," said IFAI president Steve Warner. "There are some 30,000 such structures already in existence."
Acquisition resulted in economic downturn
A second European leader in the field of coated fabrics, Gamma Holding, has just sold virtually its entire Coating and Composites business unit to Germany's Jagenberg AG – a company mainly active in the field of industrial machine building.
The Gamma Coating and Composite Technology business unit consists of four product groups:
• Printable media fabric (Seemee)
• Tent cloth and roofing structures (Duraskin)
• PTFE-coated woven glass fabrics
• Anti-ballistic materials
With 271 employees, Gamma Coating and Composites had an annual turnover in 2008 of 76 million euros and EBITDA of 2.5 million euros. Like Sioen Industries, the company reports that during 2009 its business for printable media fabric has been particularly badly hit.
During 2008, the business also supplied coated fabric for a host of roofing structures in architecture projects, including that at Alicante airport in Spain and new sports stadiums in Jakarta, Indonesia and Coquimbo, Chile.
It also supplied the fabric for all of the banners for the 2008 European Championship football tournament in Switzerland and Austria.
The sale of the business, for 37.5 million euros, is to help Gamma to reduce its debt.
A section of fabric for the interior of Hugendubel, a book store in Frankfurt, Germany |
Newly commercialised technologies
Microwave grafting
One potentially ground-breaking new surface coating technology, developed initially in a US Department of Defense Laboratory, is poised for commercial launch in the next year or so.
Alexium, based in Cambridge, UK, holds proprietary patent applications for the new process, which allows for the surface modification and attachment of nanoparticles or multiple functional groups to surfaces or substrates in a matter of seconds.
The process involves a unique new microwave grafting technique for employing commercially available chemical compounds to produce multi-functional materials, including textiles, paints, packaging, glass and building materials, as well as textiles. It is suitable for treating a wide range of textile materials including wool, cotton, viscose, nylon aramids and leather.
In addition to being super fast, the low energy treatment involves no heat, with the microwave graft providing triple point attachment of the silane and the ability to crosslink multiple functions simultaneously.
In a single treatment completed in a matter of seconds, a 50/50 cotton/nylon battled dress uniform (BDU), for example, can be made:
• Machine washable
• Self-extinguishing
• Super hydrophobic
• Super oleophobic
• Reactive to chemical and biological agents
• Infrared suppressing
The initial focus of the US military for the technology was the production of lightweight CBRN suits and it is now being scaled-up for initial production of these. The Alexium shell fabric of the new CBRN suits is said to enable them to be lighter, thinner, more flexible and more breathable.
Initial non-defence applications are envisaged in flame retardant textile treatments for upholstery and furnishing fabrics, in the treatment of aramid fabrics, oil filters and medical textiles.
Alexium's technology received the platinum prize at the 2009 WBTshowcase – the leading global investment and licensing forum for emerging technologies.
Ion-Mask
A second technology developed by the military is ion-mask, which is now being very successfully commercialised by UK company, P2i.
In December 2009, the company installed its latest ion-mask liquid-repellent nanocoating line for Adidas in Guangdong, China, and now has 15 such machines in place, primarily in Asia, but also in Europe and the USA. The proprietary lines are both for P2i's own production and those licensed to third parties.
P2i was established in 2004 to commercialise liquid-repellent treatments developed by the UK's Ministry of Defence. Now on a commercial scale, P2i's process – covered by 33 patents – has been successfully applied to a wide range of products in a many markets, including performance textiles, filtration media and bio-consumables.
P2i recently installed its latest ion-mask liquid-repellent nanocoating line for Adidas in Guangdong, China – initially for treating golf shoes
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The technology works by applying a nanometre-thick polymer layer over the entire surface of a product. Using an ionised plasma gas, this layer is molecularly bound to the surface and will not leach away. The process confers superior oil and water repellency by reducing the surface energy to ultra-low levels – down to one third that of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene). In footwear and textile applications, P2i's technology also minimises liquid absorption from outside elements and evaporated perspiration.
Adidas Golf has signed up to use P2i's ion-mask liquid-repellent nanocoating to create a new generation of high-performance golf footwear.
Ion-mask is already available in premium products from Hi-Tec, Magnum, Ecco and others. Hi-Tec, as a committed partner, has increased its number of styles featuring ion-mask from one for Autumn/Winter 2008, to 19 for Spring/Summer 2009 and to 38 for Autumn/Winter 2009.
Major textile coating processes
There are five key methods for textile coating, according to Sioen Industries:
• Direct coating, in which PVC coating paste is directly applied to the fabric. Sioen’s main end-products from this process are curtains, tilts and tarpaulins for trucks, railway wagons and containers and other uses, sports mats and swimming pool covers.
• Transfer coating, which applies a coating paste primarily of either polyurethane or silicone being applied to the fabric via a paper support. The resulting Sioen fabrics are used in protective clothing, outdoor sports clothing, shoe protectors, mattress protectors and airbags.
• Online coating, where the fabric passes directly from the weaving loom into a coating bath. This technique is used to coat textiles with very open structures such as those employed as geogrids, swimming pool covers, reinforcement nets, windbreak nets and filters.
• Extrusion coating, which allows base materials – which can be woven, knitted or nonwoven – to be coated with a range of polymers for end-use in ventilation tubes, plastic sheeting for ponds, plastic films for windows, sewer renovation fabrics etc.
• Calendering, to add TPO (thermoplastic polyolefin) or PVC films for materials used as car dashboards and door panels, sun-visors, pond liners and certain wallcoverings.
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Copyright © Adsale Publishing Limited. Credit goes to Adsale Industry Portal when used.
We reserve the right to take legal action against any party who reprint any part of this article without acknowledgement. For enquiries, please contact the Editorial Department. |
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