Construction & Architecture

Four unique new products have been nominated as finalists for the second annual RISE Durable Products Award that will be presented at INDA’s RISE Conference in late October. The RISE Durable Product Award will be awarded to a durable nonwoven product using nonwoven fabric and/or technology that is commercially sold and utilized in the consumer or industrial marketplace.

The recently-announced bankruptcy of Konarka illustrates just how tricky it is to bring groundbreaking new technologies to market – however smart they may be. The company is the latest in a list of companies who over the past decade have attempted the fusion of technologies – in this case mass manufactured solar cells with plastic films, but the marriage of electronics with textiles is just as applicable – and come unstuck at the lengthy lead times and endless financial resources required for successfully launching such products.

International Newsletters has announced that the speaker on nanotextiles has been confirmed for its TCL2012, International Conference on Textiles Coating & Laminating. Dr. Dirk Hegemann from the prestigious Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) will address the subject Nano Textiles: What can be expected from it?

Alexium announced this week that it has successfully demonstrated its Reactive Surface Technology (RST) treatments for functionalizing temperature-sensitive fibres such as high-performance polyolefins to add new properties such as antimicrobial, adhesion promotion, and flame retardancy.

With ten months still to go, Techtextil, the International Trade Fair for Technical Textiles and Nonwovens in Frankfurt am Main from 11 to 13 June 2013, is already almost fully booked. “Over 90% of the exhibition space occupied in 2011 has been reserved; 86% has actually been firmly booked. Never before have we had such a good result at such an early stage”, says Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologies.

Entering its third decade as three important days each year for the global filtration business, the Filtration 2012 International Conference and Exposition will return to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 13-15 November 2012.

The Teijin Group announced today that Tokyo-based Toho Tenax Co., Ltd., the group’s carbon-fibre composites business company, and Shanghai-based Teijin Aramid Asia Co., Ltd., the group’s aramid-fibre business, will participate in China Composites Expo 2012. The show is Asia’s largest composites exhibition and will take place at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center in Shanghai from 5-7 September.

Karl Mayer Malimo has developed a new range of geogrids with load-bearing capacities which it says have never been achieved before. The innovative textiles have a tensile strength of 1000 kN in both the weft and zero inlay directions.

RHL calendering and squeezing equipment scores in geotextiles and medical sectors New investment during 2012 by US technical nonwovens producers is said to be highlighting the benefits of calendering and water extraction technology from Richard Hough Ltd. (RHL), of the UK. Significant installations so far this year have been commissioned by leading suppliers to the geotextiles and medical sectors.

Experts wishing to give a lecture at the symposiums during Techtextil in Frankfurt, the international trade fair for technical textiles and nonwovens being held from 11 to 13 June 2013, are invited by the organisers to submit their manuscripts. The deadline for receipt of the manuscripts is 31 October 2012.