Sharp increase in demand for raw materials to make melt-blown nonwoven fabric for face masks, pushing up prices; Multiple cottage industry derivatives pop up

Sharp increase in demand for raw materials to make melt-blown nonwoven fabric for face masks, pushing up prices; Multiple cottage industry derivatives pop up

People's Daily report: production equipment for melt-blown nonwoven fabric lags behind the rest of the world

(18 Apr) Since the outbreak of the epidemic, masks have been flying off shelves. In a few months, raw material costs for melt-blown nonwoven fabric used in mask production alsosoared by over 30 times. Many manufacturers switched to producing melt-blown nonwoven fabric. In Yangzhong, Jiangsu alone, more than 860 melt-blown nonwoven fabric factories were newly registered in the past few months. The entire city was invested in melt-blown nonwoven fabric production. WeChat Moments [social networking friend group] circulated advertisements relating to melt-blown nonwoven fabric and its market price that day.

One after another, family-run workshops invested hundreds of thousands on cottage industry* to produce melt-blown nonwoven fabric for the manufacture of masks all over the country. But is the melt-blown nonwoven fabric up to standard? Some Shenzhen merchants bought a batch of masks from a recently registered company in Guizhou. After inspection, they found that their virus-filtering ability did not meet standards. The issue was suspected to be with the melt-blown nonwoven fabric.

According to reports, the efficiency of a lot inferior melt-blown nonwoven fabric was halved. Some provinces and cities have begun investigations to rectify problems of poor standards and price gouging in the melt-blown nonwoven fabric industry.

The Yangzhong municipal government in Jiangsu called for the halt of melt-blown nonwoven fabric production on Wednesday night, saying they were on high alert for the cottage industry's low production standards.

The melt-blown nonwoven fabric that is responsible for blocking contaminants is also known as the "heart of the mask". How strong is its filtering capacity? The nonwoven raw material that makes up the outer and inner layers of a mask has a fibre diameter of about 15 to 40 μm, but the fibre diameter of the melt-blown fabric in the middle layer is only 0.5 to 10 μm. This is equivalent to 1/30 of the diameter of a human hair.

Factories use melt-blown die heads through which the polymer melt passes through and blown by high-temperature streams of air, pulling it [the polymer melt] out into extremely thin fibres that bond into a mesh. After melt-blown fabric's initial formation, it goes through electrostatic treatment to improve electrostatic attraction of the fibre's surface. This is to capture fine particulate matter.

The entire manufacturing process must be controlled and precise. The critical factor lies in the manufacturing equipment's technology. A newspaper under the People's Daily reported that although China has domestically produced equipment for melt-blown fabrics, a key component - the melt-blown die heads - still had to be imported.

While the aforementioned superfine fibres equivalent to 1/30 of a hair's diameter could only be achieved with imported equipment, typical domestically produced equipment could only achieve 1/10 to 1/15 of a hair's diameter. Moreover, the technologically advanced equipment made overseas has adopted the usage of multiple composite die heads. Domestic equipment still uses a single-mode die head, which is a generation behind international technology.

A China Foreign Affairs University professor made full use of an article to point that even if China and South Korea used the same class of equipment, the duration that Chinese-made melt-blown fabric could retain its electrostatic charge is still one rank lower than that of Korean fabric.The reason lies with employees' workmanship. Compared to equipment and technology, what China lacks most is a team of craftsmen who have cultivated their skills over a long time.

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Editor's Note:

* Cottage industry describes a business that relies on people doing the work in their own homes.

Source: ICable News

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