Is Polyester A Non-woven Fabric?
Mar 03, 2025
Polyester is essentially a high-molecular synthetic material, chemically known as polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Its molecular chain structure gives it high strength, wear resistance, and resistance to chemical corrosion, and it is often processed into fibers in the textile industry. Polyester fibers can be woven into traditional fabrics or made into non-woven fabrics through special processes.
Non-woven fabric represents a disruptive manufacturing technology. It breaks through the inherent mode of "spinning-weaving" and directly solidifies the fiber network into cloth through processes such as mechanical combing, heat pressing bonding, chemical bonding, or hydraulic piercing. The advantage of this process makes the production speed of non-woven fabric 300% faster than traditional textile production, and the cost is reduced by more than 40%. It is particularly suitable for large-scale industrial production.
The relationship between the two can be likened to "flour and bread" - polyester is the basic raw material, non-woven fabric is the processing method. Just as flour can be used to make both bread and noodles, polyester can be used for both non-woven fabric production and conventional textile production.
When polyester material is combined with non-woven fabric technology, it will produce unique performance advantages:
1. Breakthrough in strength-to-weight ratio. The polyester non-woven fabric produced by melt-spinning method, with a gram weight of only 15-25 grams per square meter, can have a tensile strength of 45N/5cm, which is three times that of cotton fabric of the same thickness.
2. Controllability of microstructure. By adjusting the diameter of the spinneret (0.1-50μm) and the density of fiber arrangement, different products with permeability from 1000L/m²/s to complete blockage can be manufactured.
3. Functional expansion. Adding antibacterial agents (such as silver ions), flame retardants (phosphorous compounds) or conductive materials (carbon nanotubes) during the spinning process can develop multifunctional composite materials.
Industry data show that in 2023, the global polyester non-woven fabric market size reached 12.7 billion US dollars, with 34% in the medical field and 28% in the construction field, highlighting its professional differentiation characteristics.
Although polyester non-woven fabrics have promising prospects, the industry still faces key bottlenecks. First, the price of biodegradable polyester non-woven fabrics is 2.3 times that of conventional products, which restricts market promotion. Second, there is a lack of a recycling system. Currently, the global polyester non-woven fabric recycling rate is less than 15%, and a large amount of mixed waste is difficult to sort. Finally, the problem of performance balance. How to control the growth of resistance while improving the filtration accuracy is still a key technical challenge. These challenges are driving the development of innovative solutions, such as the "gradient structure" non-woven fabric developed by Toray, which can achieve a gradual change in pore size from 5μm to 0.1μm in a single layer material, resulting in a 40% increase in filtration efficiency and only a 12% increase in resistance.
In short, polyester is not non-woven fabric, but it can create a unique material form through non-woven fabric technology. This innovative combination of "material + technology" is reshaping the value chain of the textile industry. In the future, with the deep integration of molecular engineering, intelligent manufacturing, and recycling technology, polyester non-woven fabric will break through the traditional application boundaries and open up new horizons in cutting-edge fields such as aerospace and marine engineering. Understanding this essential difference and synergy is the key to grasping the opportunity of industrial transformation.
