Turkish nonwovens producer Akinal is investing €20 million in a 24,000 square meter land parcel with existing 11,000 square meter building in Tallin, Estonia. This plant will be dedicated to manufacture spunlace nonwoven roll goods for baby, personal care and medical wet and dry wipes with over 18,000 tons annual capacity.

“Although we may rank in top 20 with our existing nonwoven production capacities, all Akinal investments have been located in Gaziantep, Turkey up to now. This will be the first but not the last step for Akinal to become a global player in the global markets since,” says Saim Akinal, founder and chairman. “In our future plans we will continue our investments in different countries and even in different continents. It is not by chance that Akinal is investing strategically and carefully selected location in Tallinn where to serve new potential markets and existing Akinal’s sales network with better logistics conditions..”

Founded in 1999 as the first spunlace nonwoven roll goods manufacturer in Gaziantep, Turkey, Akinal currenly operates all existing plants and its headquarters  in Gaziantep, Turkey. This operation includes 450,000 square meters of land  with around 200,000 square meters of building space. Due to its capability and readiness to react flexibly and with innovative products to the continuously increasing requirements of the market,

In addition to wet wipes for a number of personal care applications, Akinal also makes spunlace-based technical substrates for synthetic leather, roofing and isolation, carpet backing, industrial wipes, shoes, automotive, geotextiles, construction, furniture, clothing and filtration.

In other news, Akinal has successfully started up an Andritz Nonwoven neXline wetlace line in Turkey. The highly flexible Wetlace technology, which combines wet forming and hydroentanglement, is especially suited for the production of flushable wipes that are dispersible and 100% biodegradable without any chemical binders.
 
The line is designed for high production capacities of up to 15,000 tons per year and integrates stock preparation, wet forming, hydroentanglement and drying. The Andritz Wetlace technology fulfills the highest environmental standards for end products and produces certified nonwovens, according to the latest EDANA/INDA guidelines for flushable wipes. Akinal Sentetik Tekstil is about to launch a new generation of flushable fabrics named BioFlush,which are dispersible and biodegradable, and is thus accessing new markets.