Mondi to produce melt blown non-woven fabric and 1 million surgical face masks per day

Mondi, a global leader in packaging and paper, is set to build new production lines in its plant in Gronau, Germany, to produce melt blown non-woven fabric and surgical face masks. This is part of the company’s efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and respond to increased demand by health authorities, businesses and consumers for face masks.

Mondi Gronau has a proven track record of producing and handling films, laminates, non-wovens and elastic ear laminates for hygiene products. This knowledge will be applied to the entire value chain of face mask production.

The production lines will produce melt blown non-woven fabric and surgical masks. Given the shortage of melt blown fabric in the market place, the company plant in Gronau will offer approximately 50% of its production to other face mask manufacturers in Europe.

Jürgen Schneider, Managing Director, Mondi Personal Care Components (PCC), commented: “We are well positioned for the increased production of face masks and melt blown non-woven fabric in Gronau. Our people have the needed know-how and expertise on working with these materials and the technology required. The in-house production capability of all substantial components positions us to build up a long-term competitive local supply. Once up and running, we will be able to produce more than one million face masks per day.”

Technical details

• Melt blown non-woven fabric provides a better filtering function than cotton.
• The single threads of non-woven fabric are 20 times thinner than a human hair.
• Surgical face masks type IIR have to meet the following requirements:
  • Bacterial filtration efficiency: 98%
  • Breathing resistance: < 60.0 Pa/cm²
  • Splash resistance: ≥ 16 kPA

Read the article online at: https://www.drybulkmagazine.com/material-handling/26052020/mondi-to-produce-melt-blown-nonwoven-fabric-and-1-million-surgical-face-masks-per-day/