1. What are Non-wovens?

Non-wovens are unique engineered fabrics offering cost effective solutions for an increasingly wide variety of applications. Nonwovens are products with many different qualities. Products that you use every day. Often without knowing it. Products whose outstanding qualities are frequently hidden from view. Products of a startling versatility. We are talking about a material with a fabric like structure. A material that can be combined with other materials.
Nonwovens are a product for our time, created by a modern and innovative industry.
A definition of Nonwovens exists as an ISO standard - ISO 9092: 1988 & as a CEN Standard EN 29092.

Definition of nonwovens ISO 9092: 1988 (extract)

· Non-woven:
A manufactured sheet, web or batt of directionally or randomly orientated fibres, bonded by friction, and/or cohesion and/or adhesion, excluding paper (see note) and products which are woven, knitted, tufted, stitch-bonded incorporating binding yarns or filaments, or felted by wet-milling, whether or not additionally needled.

The fibres may be of natural or man-made origin. They may be staple or continuous filaments or be formed in situ.

· Note: To distinguish wetlaid non-wovens from wetlaid papers, a material shall be regarded as a nonwoven if
1. more than 50% by mass of its fibrous content is made up of fibres (excluding chemically digested vegetable fibres) with a length to diameter ratio greater than 300; or, if the conditions in 1) do not apply, then

2. if the following conditions are fulfilled:
more than 30% by mass of its fibrous content is made up of fibres (excluding chemically digested vegetable fibres) with a length to diameter ratio greater than 300 and its density is less than 0,40 g/cm3

· Spunbonding-process

In this method, the non-woven is produced in a single continuous process. The raw material (granules) is melted, spun through narrow jets to form endless fibers, stretched by air flows, and laid into a web.