Teijin, for example, was the first company in Japan to produce rayon yarn as far back as 1918, after which its basic technologies supported growth, first into synthetic fibre manufacturing and then a wide range of other activities.
Morpho butterfly
Among the host of fibre innovations to come from the company in recent years, perhaps one of the most impressive is Morphotex – a highly-engineered fibre that seeks to emulate the complex structure of the scales of the beautiful South American Morpho butterfly.
The Morpho’s wings change colour depending on the angle of light from which they are viewed, and it is this property which Teijin has mimicked with Morphotex.
The fibre consists of no less than 61 separate nanolayers in a 15-17 micron structure, composed of around 85% polyester and 15% nylon. In addition to illustrating the company’s commitment to advanced fibre engineering, this product also highlights the meticulous attention to detail which has always been a big part of Japanese culture. On market stalls around the country even the smallest of objects – down to individually-sold handmade biscuits – are delicately packaged and beautifully presented.
Among other end-use applications, Teijin is increasingly targeting the nonwovens industry with its polyester staple fibres for battery separators and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for water treatment.
RO membranes were first used for cleaning water for semiconductor manufacturing, but are now widely used for the purification of drinking water in Singapore, Korea and the Middle East, with annual growth rates of 15%.
For RO membranes, a specially cut fibre is required to allow uniform dispersion in the membrane and Teijin has modified a manufacturing line to meet this demand. Teijin also reports increasing sales of its Ecopet recycled polyester fibre to the nonwovens industry.
The company’s ‘Elk’ lightweight, high-performance polyester cushion materials are also used in Japan’s bullet trains.
Elk is a polyester elastic nonwoven material which has found growing application as an alternative to traditional polyurethane foam. It is lightweight, air-permeable and recyclable, and exhibits significant elasticity and durability.
Toray Industries – now the biggest manufacturer of spunbond nonwovens in Asia – also has its origin in the spinning of rayon fibre in the late 1920s
By the 1970s, however, its introduction of Alcantara showcased a sophistication in advanced nonwovens processing that is still difficult to match today.
Alcantara fabric is made by a proprietary process from 0.04 or 0.14 denier polyester microfibres – some 200 to 300 times finer than the finest wool, and between 40 to 50 times finer than cotton. The process is very laborious, taking three days to complete, from the raw polyester and polystyrene chips to the finished product.
Special 16 or 36 hole extruder spinnerets are used to spin the microfibre, and during the spinning phase the fine polyester threads are protected by a polystyrene sheath. After being formed, these bicomponent filaments are cut at lengths of approximately 50mm and the staple is carded to form a thin layer of material, which is then layered to form a felt.
This is then bonded together using different densities of needles to obtain the desired thickness and weight, and special equipment is employed to remove the polystyrene and replace it with polyurethane to form the basic material. All solvents used during this processing are 100% recycled.
The basic material is then cut transversely, creating two bolts, in order to obtain the desired light weight, and during a buffing process, the internal surface is rubbed with special abrasive papers, causing the polyester fibres to emerge, and giving Alcantara its typical feel, velvety texture and silk-like shine.
A series of jet dyeing machines with computer-aided dye formulation allows for an immense colour range – to date over 5,000 shades – to be offered to the market, with specific performance capabilities related to application requirements.
The result is a unique product which successfully competes against the finest grades of leather in automotive, furnishing and apparel applications.
This is just one example of the high-end innovation which has come from Toray’s Fibers & Textiles Research Laboratories, established in 1969, which more recently have explored many alternatives for eco-friendly materials and nanofibres.
“As we move into the 21st century, what has been deemed the ‘century of knowledge’, companies operating in resource-poor Japan, must promote technology to enable global growth,” says Toray’s president and CEO Chiaki Tanaka. “Toray Group began as a manufacturer of rayon fibre and has matured into a developer and manufacturer of a large variety of materials. “Since the company was first established, our core technologies have been polymer science, organic synthetic chemistry and biotechnology and we continue to move into new business fields based on them.”
As perhaps Japan’s most famous brand, it is worth noting that the mighty Toyota Motor Corporation, which in 2009 had a global turnover of US$164 billion, also owes its existence to the early textile industry, and in this case, the weaving loom.
Though the car giant became a separate entity as far back as 1937, its creation was only made possible by Sakichi Toyoda’s invention of the automatic loom in 1924 and the formation of Toyota Automatic Loom Works two years later.
Now known as Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO) the original company still has 27,500 employees at 34 production sites, but with textile machinery representing just 1.9% of its €13 billion sales. In the past five years, however, TICO has installed around 40,000 weaving looms worldwide and it is this heritage which sees Toyota Motor Corporation ever seeking to adopt new nonwovens and other soft materials into its vehicles.
In particular, Toyota continues to pioneer the use of bioplastics, and the new 2010 Toyota Lexus HS250h luxury hybrid vehicle includes nonwoven components supplied by both Toyota Boshoku and Toray Industries.
The nonwovens for the parcel rack and boot liner, supplied by Toyota Boshoku for this new model, are manufactured from a blend of PLA (polylactic acid) and conventional polypropylene, and the company plans to go a stage further and supply nonwovens made from a combination of the raw plant material kenaf with PLA for Toyota’s next-generation i-REAL personal mobility concept vehicles.
Toray Industries, meanwhile, has supplied nonwovens made from ‘islands-in-the-sea’ bicomponent fibres containing between 30-50% PLA for the floor carpets of the Lexus HS250h, and their application is likely to be extended to headliners and door trim in the future.
Toray currently has the capacity to produce around 200 tonnes of this new PLA bico fibre annually, but is planning to expand capacity to an annual 5,000 tonnes by 2015, and to extend its use into other areas.
Many new Japanese fibre innovations of relevance to the nonwovens industry will be showcased at INDEX 11– the leading show for the sector which takes place at Geneva Palexpo from April 12-15 2011.
