Far Eastern New Century Corporation (FENC) has developed a new microfibre for medical masks which addresses a shortage in meltblown non-wovens.

The Taiwanese group, a major supplier to global sportswear brands, says it can surpass the daily demand of 13 million facemasks by making up to 20 million per day.

The nonwoven material used for the middle filtration layer of medical masks is commonly made from PP fibres with meltblown technology and then charged with static electricity.

However, due to the wide spread of the coronavirus, meltblown nonwoven supply is far below its demand, says FENC, so it has developed a new kind of microfibre which can be used as the filtration layer of masks to replace meltblown nonwoven. The nonwoven made by this kind of material has a multilayer structure based on close to nanoscale fibers. This structure gives the nonwoven the ability to capture every small particle and allows these facemasks to be washed in water and reused.

“Tests have shown that the filtration ability of these masks is much better than the normal type of medical masks, with a similar standard to that of N95 masks, and excellent filtration result for PM2.5. FENC is now actively supporting facemask manufacturers for the testing and development of this new product,” said the company.

Source: Sports Textiles