Conwed, now part of Schweitzer-Mauduit International (SWM), will be present at World of Wipes (WOW) 2017 in Nashville, TN (June 12-15, 2017). Organized by the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry (INDA), this is the premier event devoted entirely to the wipes industry. With the increasing demand for disposable consumer and industrial wipes, the nonwoven and fabrics industry gather to share technology, market insights and new trends affecting this niche but growing product category.

SWM netting is used by manufacturers and converters to add strength, stability, support, and bonding features to different substrates such as nonwoven, paper, aluminum, etc. “Our customers can incorporate netting with other substrates using different techniques, such as extrusion coating, extrusion lamination, thermal lamination, ultrasonic welding, wet and dry adhesive lamination and diverse nonwoven processes,” says Ivan Soltero, senior strategic marketing manager at Conwed/SWM.

In many cases, incorporating SWM netting to industrial composites helps reduce cost, weight, height, thickness, and overall size of products and save energy, material, and production process time. “Our Thermanet product line is a co-extruded netting configuration with adhesive properties in one or more of its layers that allow the netting to bond with a variety of materials when it is processed through thermal lamination. It provides lightweight and high-strength properties that are ideal for wipes,” Soltero adds.

Co-extrusion is a multi-layer extruded netting than can be subsequently oriented where different polymers can form different layers on the same netting configuration. It is a square netting construction and Conwed has the ability to build netting with A/B, A/B/A, and A/B/C layer combinations. By using co-extrusion netting with adhesive layers, manufacturers and converters may eliminate adhesive steps in their manufacturing and converting processes for specific product applications. Co-extrusion netting can be used in industrial wipes, building & construction composites, automotive acoustic composites, filtration pleat and media support, bedding insulators, vacuum bags, etc.