Courtaulds and Akzo Nobel get into lingerie
15 Jan 2000
`Encouraging progress' towards a new process for making solvent-spun cellulosic filament yarn is accelerating moves towards a joint venture between Akzo Nobel and Courtaulds. The companies have embarked on an engineering study for a 5000t/a commercial scale plant to make the fibre.
Solvent-spun cellulosic fibre, known as lyocell, is one of Courtaulds' newest and most promising products. The fibre, produced in the USand UK, and sold as Tencel, looks and washes like cotton, but drapes and feels like silk.
But the fibre, which is derived from wood pulp, can currently be produced only in a `staple' form - short, fluffy lengths that have to be wound and spun into yarn in a separate process. This limits the range of applications to denim- and chambray-like fabrics, explains Courtaulds.
Courtaulds and Akzo Nobel have now devised a process to make lyocell as a filament yarn. Many times longer than the staple fibres, filaments require no further processing when they come off the production plant, explains Courtaulds. This means they can be used in products such as lingerie and other `light-weight fashion garments.'
Akzo Nobel, which bought a licence to make lyocell staple from Lenzing in 1987, has been testing the new, still secret, process at a 100t/a pilot plant in Obernburg, Germany. Courtaulds has contributed `extensive process and product know-how' to the research.
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