Pegas Nonwovens s.r.o., a direct subsidiary of Pegas Nonwovens SA has  launched testing equipment for the plasma treatment of nonwoven textiles in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. The testing equipment is a part of the R&D project focused on the new generation treatment of nonwoven textiles using atmospheric plasma, which was announced by the Company in the Spring of this year. PEGAS is running the project in cooperation with the Institute of the Physical Electronics associated with the Faculty of Natural Science of the Masaryk University in Brno and INOTEX s.r.o. based in Dvůr Králové nad Labem, where the equipment is located.

The testing equipment will be used to treat nonwoven textiles using atmospheric plasma discharge. It consists of a nonwoven textile unwinding unit, a plasma unit, equipment for liquid chemical application, a drying and a winding machine.

The installed equipment should introduce in-line nonwovens testing with the aim of verifying the impact of plasma treatment on fibre surface properties in nonwoven textiles and potentially achieve permanent chemical action through the fixation of active particles on the fibre surface. In addition, the equipment may enable research into the interaction of the plasma pre-treatment and of subsequent applications, which may potentially also include nano-treatment.

The project is carried with the aid of a financial grant from the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade. The planned project budget is up to CZK 70 million during the period 2008 – 2011 and the total size of the grant may reach up to CZK 25 million.

The usage of plasma should ensure improvements in the required durability parameters and allow for a significant reduction in the amount of currently used functional additives, which are used to achieve the necessary parameters of nonwoven textiles for hygiene applications. Further benefits of the project include an improvement of textile properties at lower costs and an improvement in environment friendliness.