Utilization of Pre-Cleaned Greige Cotton in Nonwovens: A Sensible Approach, 2011 Innovative Nonwovens Conference

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Although cotton – a consumer-preferred, naturally sustainable fiber – has been extensively used in traditional textiles for centuries, its utilization in nonwoven fabrics has been minimal (~2% by weight). A major reason for the cotton thus far not being a preferred fiber for modern nonwovens has been that the supplied raw (greige/non-bleached) cotton needs to be thoroughly cleaned of its foreign matter (such as the plant debris, bark, leaves, seed-coat fragments, etc.) and, generally, it also needs to be scoured and bleached to remove the fiber’s own non-cellulosic matter (such as the natural waxes, pectin, sugars and pigments) before it can be processed in existing nonwovens roll-goods manufacturing entities. The nonwovens manufacturing plants today typically use (process) synthetic and manufactured supply fibers (such as polyester, polypropylene, rayon, etc.) that inherently are clean/pure, consistent and white (in color) and, hence, do not require the cleaning that the supplied raw cotton almost always requires. In other words, the nonwovens manufacturers mostly do not have the equipment and technical expertise required to clean and possibly bleach the supplied classical raw cotton.