Engaged Nonwovens Research in High Tech Markers
By: Seshadri Ramkumar, Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory, Texas Tech University
Nonwovens are engineered fibrous structures that lend themselves well to customized design, value-addition by different means, functionalization, and new applications. This sector is innovative and caters to the needs of consumer and industrial markets. A growth pathway is to be nimble and develop products that cater to national defense, health care, environmental protection, and future needs. Sustainability, economic development actions, and system approaches are a few opportunities the industry can pursue to diversify and grow. For example, the wipes sector is a growth segment, and looking beyond the routine applications and diversifying into high-tech markets will create many downstream SMEs, which will be a powerful message.
High Tech Wipes: A Model for Growth
As briefed above, customer-centered innovation yields timely outcomes. A collaborative endeavor among different stakeholders such as academia, federal laboratories, industry, and federal agencies has led to the commercialization of a nonwoven wipe in life-saving areas. Continuous engagement by the industry with the user community such as the U.S. Army has enabled multiple applications for mechanically bonded wipes in areas beyond industrial applications.
An invention from Texas Tech University (TTU) licensed by Hobbs Bonded Fibers was commercialized by an SME that caters to defense, emergency management, and homeland security.
Fredericksburg, Virginia-based First Line Technology (FLT) which specializes in emergency management such as AmbuBus, which is a mass evacuation transport system has worked with different government agencies to translate the nonwoven wipe technology developed at the Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory at TTU. The key to this success is the efforts by FLT to look for technologies in academic laboratories that cater to their core competency. This model of commercialization gives ideas for the nonwovens and textiles sector to participate in events in other fields such as defense, chemical and biological defense, toxicology, infectious disease prevention, etc. FLT before translating the nonwoven wipe to defense and homeland security markets was not exploring innovations in the technical textiles sector. Having seen the sample in a technology showcase by a defense contractor, connections were established with Texas Tech and a nonwoven roll-good manufacturer. In my experience, I believe, once in a while researchers and industry personnel must participate in events beyond their routine activity and/or outside their comfort zone. Such efforts provide new applications and ideas hitherto not thought of—this is necessary for converters and small-scale sectors in our industry.
High-technology products need constant tweaking and development so that multiple applications can be evolved as was the case with the FiberTect wipe.
“Constant innovation and close interaction with the end-user and manufacturing sectors are needed particularly when we are dealing with markets like security and emergency management,” stated Amit Kapoor, President of First Line Technology.
Continuous Innovation: FiberTect Model
FiberTect evolved based on the requirement from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a decontamination product that can be used on warfighter’s skin as well as sensitive equipment. A government-funded program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory based on an evaluation of 30 different wiping and cleansing technologies showed the nonwoven wipe is the best “dry wipe,” and recommended it as a part of the “Low-Cost Personnel Decontamination System (LPDS).” This result provided the first opportunity for the nonwoven wipe to penetrate the chemical response efforts of many agencies. Given the platform nature of the product, and continuous involvement with the U.S. Army, national guards, and state/local agencies, it was evaluated for different applications such as decontaminating fine particles like radiological particles, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, etc.
Investment in research and belief in multidisciplinary collaborations has paid off in the case of FiberTect taking it beyond its original intent, i.e., decontaminating toxic agents such as mustard. Ideas need to be commercialized and system approaches help in quick outcomes. In the case of LPDS, dry nonwoven wipe FiberTect is used in conjunction with chemicals that are reactive with toxins. “Commercialization of proven ideas is valuable for the United States’ economy, particularly with the help of technologies conceived, developed, and manufactured here,” opined Amit Kapoor. In the case of SMEs, this model will work well as federal agencies such as BARDA, DARPA, NASA, and Homeland Security are constantly looking for innovative technologies for national defense and security.
Nonwoven Wipe in the Arctic
First Line Technology has successfully demonstrated the efficiency of cold weather decontamination during a recent training event at Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital in Utqiagvk, Alaska, using nonwoven dry decontamination wipe, FiberTect as a patient and responder decontamination wipe technology. The hospital is in the northernmost part of the United States, 350 miles above the Arctic Circle—bordering the Arctic Ocean. The average temperature in this region is 17oF.
Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital is the only hospital that provides healthcare services in the North Slope Borough of Alaska. This area is prone to fentanyl and other opioid addiction issues, as well being in the oil drilling region, there is a necessity that the first receiver teams are adequately equipped with decontamination technology that works in severe cold weather conditions.
“FiberTect is allowing first receivers and first responders to perform effective decontamination in austere temperatures where other decontamination approaches may not be viable,” stated Corey Collings, Director at First Line Technology. The FiberTect nonwoven wipe due to its patented structure can effectively remove fentanyl and radiological particles, as well as added Collings. Government clients like the U.S. Army have examined the performance of FiberTect as recently as 2022 in the Arctic Eagle exercise in Alaska.
The collaborations with government agencies have proved vital and beneficial. A study by Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, for the U.S. Department of Defense focused on assessing nonaqueous technologies for personnel decontamination. FiberTect wipes came out superior to other products which includes the fielded JPM-P technology in decontaminating particulate contamination, including radiological and synthetic toxic particles. An interesting outcome is that the nonwoven wipe can be used in subzero temperatures where water-based technologies are not applicable.
Opportunities for the Wipes Sector
As is the case with FiberTect, collaboration with stakeholders, and constant product development based on feedback provide high-end applications.
Nonwoven wipes manufactured using mechanical bonding are finding applications that can save lives and serve society such as preventing the opioid epidemic, decontamination of radiological particles, and toxic industrial chemicals in addition to nerve and mustard agents.
Agreeing with the benefits of system approaches such as the “Hybrid Decon,” where FiberTect is a major component, Amit Kapoor states, “Finding multiple applications enhances the market. We are pleased that the nonwoven wipe technology has attracted the attention of chemical response teams of many government agencies in the United States. Many agencies in Australia, Sweden, Eastern Europe, and Canada are using FiberTect because of its structural capability and multi-fold applications.”
The nonwoven sector must explore applications in life-saving and defense sectors and already has many products that have proved their worthiness and applications in nontraditional areas.