Nonwoven web material including fibers formed of recycled polyester, and methods for producing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9539357-B2
Application number	US-201314069809-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 1, 2013
Priority date	Nov 1, 2013
Publication date	Jan 10, 2017
Grant date	Jan 10, 2017

Abstract

A nonwoven web material including fibers formed of a polyolefin and a polyester is disclosed. The fibers may include fine fibers produced by, for example, a meltblowing process. The polyolefin may be polypropylene and the polyester may be polylactic acid. The polylactic acid may be obtained and included by recycling scrap nonwoven material containing a polylactic acid component, hydrolyzing the polylactic acid component to reduce its viscosity, blending the hydrolyzed polylactic acid with a polyolefin resin, and melt-spinning the blended material to form fibers. A related process is disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A nonwoven web material comprising monocomponent fine fibers spun from a blend of resins including polypropylene and hydrolyzed polyester obtained from recycled scrap material comprising the polyester and a polyolefin.

2. The nonwoven web material of claim 1 comprising spunbond fibers, the spunbond fibers comprising polyolefin.

3. The nonwoven web material of claim 2 , wherein the spunbond fibers further comprise polyester.

4. The nonwoven web material of claim 3 , wherein the spunbond fibers are multicomponent fibers having a first component comprising predominately polyolefin and a second component comprising predominately polyester.

5. The nonwoven web material of claim 4 , wherein the polyester is polylactic acid.

6. The nonwoven web material of claim 4 , wherein the polyolefin is polypropylene.

7. The nonwoven web material of claim 4 , wherein the multicomponent fibers are bicomponent fibers having a sheath-core configuration, with a sheath component and a core component.

8. The nonwoven web material of claim 7 , wherein the sheath component is the first component and the core component is the second component.

9. The nonwoven web material of claim 2 , wherein the spunbond fibers form a first layer of the nonwoven web material and the fine fibers form a second layer of the nonwoven web material.

10. The nonwoven web material of claim 1 wherein the polyester comprises polylactic acid and the scrap material is cut from an earlier-manufactured nonwoven web material.

11. An absorbent article comprising a topsheet, a backsheet, and an absorbent core disposed between the topsheet and the backsheet, wherein the nonwoven web material of claim 1 forms a component of the absorbent article.

12. The absorbent article of claim 11 wherein the nonwoven web material forms, or forms a subcomponent of, one or more of the topsheet, the backsheet, a structure enveloping the absorbent core, barrier cuffs or side panels.

13. A nonwoven web comprising fine fibers derived from recycled materials and made according to a method comprising the steps of:
procuring scrap material comprising a scrap polylactic acid component and a scrap polyolefin component;
hydrolyzing the scrap polylactic acid component to reduce its viscosity;
blending the hydrolyzed scrap polylactic acid with a polypropylene resin to form a resin blend;
melt-spinning the resin blend to form monocomponent fine fibers and directing the fine fibers toward, and accumulating the fine fibers on, a moving surface.

14. A nonwoven web formed at least in part of fibers comprising polylactic acid obtained from recycled scrap comprising the polylactic acid and a polyolefin, wherein the polylactic acid has been hydrolyzed.

15. The nonwoven web of claim 14 wherein the fibers are fine fibers.

16. The nonwoven web of claim 14 further comprising multicomponent spunbond fibers having a first component and a second component, wherein the first component comprises polylactic acid and the second component comprises polypropylene.

17. The nonwoven web of claim 16 , wherein the hydrolyzed polylactic acid is blended into at least one of the first and second components.

18. The nonwoven web of claim 16 wherein the multicomponent spunbond fibers have a core/sheath configuration wherein a core section is the first component and a sheath section is the second component.

19. The nonwoven web of claim 18 wherein the hydrolyzed polylactic acid is blended into at least one of the core or sheath sections.

20. The nonwoven web of claim 14 having at least a layer of spunbond fibers and a layer of fine fibers.

21. The nonwoven web of claim 20 wherein the fine fiber layer is formed of fine fibers comprising hydrolyzed polylactic acid obtained from the recycled scrap.

Assignees

• Procter & Gamble

Inventors

• Ashraf Arman
• Gorley Ronald Thomas

Classifications

• D04H1/4274 Primary

  Rags; Fabric scraps · CPC title

• A61L15/225 Primary

  Mixtures of macromolecular compounds · CPC title

• D04H3/016

  characterised by the fineness · CPC title

• D04H3/153

  Mixed yarns or filaments · CPC title

• Y10T442/681

  Spun-bonded nonwoven fabric · CPC title