Using so-called ‘bi-component’ yarns based on a higher melting polymer consisting of a stiff core filament surrounded by a lower-melting skin polymer, this unique ‘non-woven’ can be made.

Large parallel sets of yarn bundles are fed onto a metal mesh to form an intricately shaped non-woven web. This is subsequently consolidated by heating the web to a temperature where the low-melting skin is molten. The myriads of filament intersections are ‘glued’ to form a very stiff, yet open and dimensionally stable ‘spunlaid’ non-woven with unique properties.

The two separate steps of bi-component polymer yarn spinning and filament laydown & consolidation into a non-woven provides a highly flexible platform to combine yarns with different functionality for various applications including primary backing for tufted carpets, filtration support media and carriers for coatings, laminated polymers etc.