Celli enters airlaid market: Wingformer borrows from company tradition.

The airlaid market has attracted another participant. Despite overcapacity issues and a need for new market applications, the airlaid market is the next spot on A. Celli Nonwovens' radar. The company has announced the formation of Wingformer airlaid technology, the result of a near four-year project.

A. Celli has installed one of these new lines at Rieter Perfojet's new pilot facility in Montbonnot, France, where it works in tandem with a Rieter spunlace line. This facility has given A. Celli a chance to test the Wingformer and the company is now ready to present the system to the marketplace, according to managing director Alessandro Celli.

Working primarily with cellulose fibers, the Wingformer has been able to achieve productivity levels higher than 450 kb/h/meter with semitreated pulp, or more with untreated pulp. These results have been achieved with an integrated scanning system that works in a closed loop, checks out the fiber deposition and automatically adjusts appropriate working parameters.

Wingformer was developed by a research team--formed in 2002--that worked full time in A. Celli's research and development center. This team was composed of paper technology experts whose main job was to re-think and apply the most sophisticated paper knowledge to air forming. Experts with direct experience in airlaid making were involved in the team to bring knowledge from real world applications. After two years of work, the Wingformer project hit a significant milestone in mid-2002 when A. Celli applied for three international patents. At this time, the manufacturing phase of the project was also begun and by 2003 the new system was ready for pre-testing.

Company Tradition

In today's nonwovens industry, A. Celli Nonwovens is known for its winding and slitting/rewinding expertise, but historically the company was built on its paper-making technology. This heritage was part of what led A. Celli to develop the Wingformer, a 5.6 meter-wide airlaid forming machine.

"Airlaid has many similarities to paper making except for the fact that the medium to deposit the fibers is air instead of water," said Dr. Celli. "Our water-based pulp formers are far more sophisticated than airlaid ones and have many more controlling and monitoring systems installed on board to guarantee capacity, quality and uniformity."

According to Dr. Celli, his company's dealings with airlaid producers--through the winders and slitters/rewinders--gave him a sense that productivity and efficiency were being sacrificed. Naturally, expansion into airlaid technology was the perfect marriage between A. Celli's paper and nonwovens businesses.

For The People

The first step in Wingformer's developing process was interviewing current airlaid users to assess their needs and wants. Through this process, A. Celli saw a need for more stable formation quality and better uniformity of deposition as well as the ability to use a wide range of fibers with a particular preference for long fibers. Other interests included better mechanical construction, more efficient use of raw materials and improved cost efficiency.

A. Celli executives feel confident that they have met all of these demands by creating a system that eliminates the need for line steps due to clogging problems and dramatically improves forming capacity and the uniformity of the formed web.

While problems persist in the global airlaid market, A. Celli feels that this technology, coupled with its strong tradition in tissue making, will open doors for it in this segment. "We have a vision--making airlaid forming a better technology that can benefit from many evolutions, field experiences and years of development coming from the best paper technology," Dr. Celli added. "This is exactly what we have already done with great success in the field of winders and slitter-rewinders, applying paper technology to nonwovens machinery."--K.B.