NatureWorks, Nonwovens Institute Support N95 Masks Production for Healthcare Workers

A long-standing partnership between NatureWorks and the Nonwovens Institute (NWI) at North Carolina State University (NC State) has resulted in a new spunbond nonwoven technology enabling the production of at least 10 million additional N95 surgical masks. NWI has converted the use of its research and training pilot production line to produce the face mask materials, and NatureWorks has donated the Ingeo resin needed to produce the spunbond material.

Typical N95 respirators and surgical masks are a multi-layer structure of one or two spunbond nonwoven layers that provide mask shape and protect the inner filtration layer. Those layers are combined with an electrostatically charged layer of meltblown nonwoven material which serves as the filtration layer capturing microscopic unwanted particles such as viruses and bacteria.

The new nonwoven fabric is a bi-component fibre made of Ingeo biopolymer (PLA) and polypropylene (PP), providing significant strength and bulk with equal effectiveness in filtration. Additionally, Ingeo improves the productivity of the spunbond process by at least 30%. Leveraging these benefits, NWI’s pilot line can produce enough material to make 2 million masks per week.

Typically, one meter of spunbond material provides enough for about 20 to 25 masks when using the current designs, according to NWI. One of the NWI’s production lines started producing 2,000 meters of spunbond material per hour, with the potential to create some 20,000 meters of spunbond material in a day.

NWI currently has an agreement to provide large amounts of spunbond nonwoven material to several key partners, which will make masks at their manufacturing facilities. They plan to provide the new masks to local communities in need. NC State has also ordered machines that will allow NWI to make surgical masks in its Centennial Campus facilities.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Tecnon OrbiChem published in April my special report covering the COVID-19 pandemic and how the biofuels industry, as well as several renewable chemicals companies, have been helping out to minimize the horrific deaths caused by this pandemic. I will blog more on some of these companies.

For those who have been asking me about the potential effects of this pandemic on the bio-based chemicals market, I will be updating the Executive Summary and Market Review of my report ‘Commercialisation Updates on Bio-based Building Blocks’ which was published by Nova Institute in February.