What Is The Market Demand of Meltblown Nonwoven In Asian-Pacific Region?
In recent years, with the rampant spread of respiratory infectious viruses (such as Ebola virus, SARS virus, etc.), public health issues have received attention from all walks of life. Especially in 2020, the novel coronavirus is spreading around the world, posing a great threat to human life. Medical masks and protective suits have become important protective equipment to prevent the spread of the virus and protect people’s health. Protective masks and clothing for different purposes or levels are made of different materials and preparation methods. As the highest level medical protective masks (such as N95) and protective clothing, 3 ~ 5 layers of non-woven fabric are used, namely SMS or SMMMS combination. The most important of these protective equipment is the barrier layer, namely MelTbown non-woven layer M(MelTbown). The fiber diameter of this layer is relatively small, 2 ~ 3μm, and it plays a crucial role in preventing the penetration of bacteria and blood.
The microfiber cloth shows good filterability, air permeability and absorption, so it is widely used in filtration materials, thermal materials, medical health and other fields. Under the induction of sudden public health events, domestic and foreign polypropylene melt-blown non-woven technology has developed rapidly. The development status and application of polypropylene melt-blown non-woven fabric are systematically provides reference for further study of this kind of products.
The global consumption distribution is mainly concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, accounting for over 40% of the market share in 2019, followed by North America, accounting for about 30% of the market share.
The global melt-blown non-woven fabric market reached 7.6 billion yuan in 2020 and is expected to reach 8.4 billion yuan in 2026, with a CAGR of 3.6%.
Medical protection: It is a main application field of polypropylene melt-blown non-woven fabric. With people’s higher requirements for health protection, its status in the field of medical and health is increasing. In recent years, melt-blown non-woven fabric and spunviscose non-woven fabric have been combined with high strength, good hand feel, high efficiency and low resistance. It is used to make medical masks, usually SMS compound. The “S” layer is mainly a spunadhesive layer that provides strong support for composite non-woven fabric. The outer “S” layer is made of polypropylene non-woven fabric after waterproof treatment, which is mainly used to block droplets with virus and large particles of dust. The inner “S” layer is the ordinary polypropylene spinning adhesive non-woven fabric, which mainly plays the role of hygroscopic. “M” is polypropylene melt-blown non-woven layer. After electret treatment, it can block viruses and filter suspended bacterial particles, with filtration efficiency higher than 95% and low respiratory resistance. It is the most important protective material during the outbreak period.
Thermal Insulation Materials: Polypropylene fiber with large surface area, small pore size and high porosity, the fiber structure can store a lot of air, effectively prevent heat loss, good heating and air permeability; Light weight, soft but not thin feeling, is the ideal warm material. The melt-blown thermal batting developed by 3M Company in the United States adds the coarse denier polyester three-dimensional crimping fiber to the polypropylene melt-blown fiber (the content is 35%), which increases the shapiness of the non-woven fabric. It is reported that the structure of the melt-blown product is like down, and the heating retention is 1.5 times higher than down.
Oil Absorbing Material: Polypropylene fiber has good oil affinity, poor hygroscopic, and insoluble in oil and strong acid and alkali chemical properties, is a kind of efficient and pollution-free new oil absorbing material. Light weight, after oil absorption, can still float on the water for a long time without deformation; Non-polar material, its oil absorption can reach dozens of times its own weight; Non-toxic, good replacement of water and oil, can be repeated for many times; The polypropylene melt-blown cloth treated by combustion method does not produce toxic gas, which can be completely burned and give off a lot of heat, with only 0.02% of the ash remaining.
At present, polypropylene meltjet oil absorption material is widely used in environmental protection, oil-water separation engineering, sea oil spill and other fields. It is combined the prepared high-oil absorbing resin material of styrene, hydroxyethyl methacrylate and methacrylate with polypropylene pellets for melt spraying. The composite polypropylene melt spraying material produced has the characteristics of high oil absorption multiple, good oil retention rate and low water absorption rate.
Filter material: It is the earliest application field of polypropylene melt-blown non-woven fabric, its fiber diameter is less than 5μm, very suitable for air filtration material. In particular, melt-blown materials treated by electroelectrets are characterized by fluffy structure, large porosity, large dust capacity, small respiratory resistance and high filtration efficiency. It is widely used in filtration materials such as sub-high efficiency, high efficiency and low resistance, ordinary household air conditioning and electronic manufacturing. Polypropylene melt-blown material can also be used in liquid filtration, can filter 0.22 ~ 10μm of particles, such as the filtration of white blood cells in the blood during blood delivery.
