LEONBERG, Germany — February 7, 2019 — A state of the art BRÜCKNER multi-purpose coating line for technical textiles has been successfully commissioned and is operating since the beginning of 2018 at Sri Venkatalakshmi Spinners (P) Ltd. (SVS) in Udumalpet, a textile town about 70 km from Coimbatore City, in the South of India. SVS was established in 1980 and now focuses primarily on the spinning of different yarn qualities, the manufacturing of various types of fabrics by weaving, circular knitting and warp knitting and the manufacturing of various coated materials and Technical Textiles with a very modern coating line.

SVS strives to maintain its environmental sustainability efforts by generating their own electric power through grid-connected wind mill and they are currently working on a large-scale LT photovoltaic power generator project. After a careful consideration of today’s business, the change in the technological environment and their capability, SVS has established a very modern world-class coating infrastructure to become an integrated value-added manufacturer of Technical Textile products. They want to capitalize their spinning and fabric infrastructure as well as their knowledge base to develop value added Technical Textile products for various applications.

The company has started its Technical Textile production in December 2017 under the name of SVS Advanced Fabrics – (SAF). The project is one of the most modern and advanced production units in India. The company specializes currently mainly in high-tech preparation for digital printing, automotive fabrics, functional textiles for sports and leisure as well as fabrics for architectural purposes. Gopinath Bala, who takes care of their technical, product development and marketing activities, leads the company together with a strong and experienced management team. He holds several university degrees in Textile Technology, Polymer sciences as well as Business Administration and worked several years in the US for the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and the Department of Defense (DOD-DARPA). He is also a Board Member, Council of Administration – South Indian Textile Research Association (SITRA), a primer textile research institute at Coimbatore. Raja, operations director, who takes care of the production has started his career with CHT – BEZEMA a German multinational specialty dyes and chemical manufacturing company as technical manager in 1999. He worked for 18 years in various application fields like pre-treatment, dyeing, finishing, printing & coating.

SAF has partnered with Brückner Textile Technologies (Germany) to ensure that the machine will be customized exactly to their needs. Brückner’s local partner, Voltas Ltd. (Textile Machinery Division) supports the customer with an extraordinary local service for troubleshooting and spare parts supply. The modern Brückner coating line is equipped with the best in class heat consistency available on the market throughout, is environmentally friendly heated with LPG fuel. An integrated Zimmer, Austria coating head with a high precision magnet roller coating head and a screen coating and printing facility ensures in combination with a Mahlo (Germany) QMS weight measurement system, that the coated products (mainly preparation for printing) always meet the specifications consistently at high levels.

Bala explains why SAF decided to move forward in this project together with Brückner:

SVS choose Brückner because they were the clear leader and a strong knowledge partner with a very long history of experience in the Technical Textile Industry. Brückner had adopted to technical textiles and started providing machinery to the industry way back when Europe started its ventures in Technical Textiles. SAF is a new company venturing into Technical Textiles, having a strong knowledge partner in various spectrum of products and processes to support us was the main reason for us to choose to partner with Brückner. Additionally Brückner’s equipment’s are of very high quality, precisely engineered, low maintenance and consume the lowest energy levels.

The SVS – SAF Management team has strong experience and background in Technical Textiles applications and Polymers as well as conventional dyeing and printing. Together with business partners they provide complete solutions, support and guidance. 40 years of experience in manufacturing yarns and in manufacturing various types of fabrics give them the ability to foresee global and domestic trends and stay ahead of the curve. Brückner wishes SVS Advanced Fabrics (SAF) a continuous growth as well as success and will support the customer with technological advice on site within the near future.

Posted February 7, 2019

Source: Brückner Textile Technologies GmbH & Co. KG

CAMBRIDGE, England — February 6, 2019 — Xaar has celebrated the ground-breaking technologies of its high performance Xaar 5601 printhead in a special event for over 300 of its UK-based staff. The Xaar 5601, based on the Xaar’s silicon MEMS thin film platform, is the culmination of over eight years of Research & Development. The technology platform represents a major step forward in digital inkjet printing and has created a foundation for Xaar’s thin film printheads of the future.

“Understanding customer and market requirements was key to the development of the Xaar 5601,” commented Ramon Borrell, CTO, Xaar. “We wanted to create a new platform with capabilities that we didn’t have at the time. Specifically, we wanted to develop an aqueous printhead, with higher resolution, higher printing speed and higher print quality.

“This meant we needed to start our development with a blank piece of paper; designing every part from the ground up and not being limited by the previous technologies.”

With over 5600 active nozzles, the Xaar 5601 printhead is the first printhead from this new platform, providing an exceptionally high-quality print resolution which is capable of jetting up to nine liters of fluid per hour at a frequency in excess of 100 kHz. In addition, the Xaar 5601 printhead incorporates Xaar’s TF Technology to maximize production uptime, print quality and printhead lifetime, while its unique Z profile makes fitting multiple printheads closely together possible, ensuring an exceptionally compact print zone and reduced cost of ownership.

“Critical to success was the time and effort we put into visiting customers throughout the development program to ensure we captured and delivered solutions to the key OEM and end user pain points, “ said Jason Remnant, product line manager at Xaar.

Feedback since the release of the Xaar 5601 has been overwhelmingly positive. Customers have been impressed by the performance of the Xaar 5601 in terms of the outstanding print quality, its unparalleled usability and the print speeds that it can achieve — up to two meters per second.

“The Xaar 5601 is the culmination of all the R&D teams’ hard work on the new technology platform,” continued Remnant. “We’ve invested in a platform that will produce not just one printhead, but a family of printheads and we wanted to recognize the hard work that has gone into the program.”

Commenting on the day, Doug Edwards, CEO of Xaar, said: “We are immensely proud of what has been achieved in terms of delivering a completely new technology platform, which we expect to deliver a step-change in inkjet printing. Today was about recognizing this and reinforcing how each person had a role to play. It is a fantastic achievement by everyone at Xaar and demonstrates our leadership in inkjet technology.”

Posted February 6, 2019

Source: Xaar, plc

CLEVELAND — February 5, 2019 — The Lubrizol Corp. announces the commercial availability of a novel flame retardant product, Hycar® NH3069, designed to deliver excellent flame retardant performance without the use of additives or halogenated materials. Based on new, self-crosslinking, non-halogen polymer technology, Hycar NH3069 imparts flame retardancy to cellulosics, making it a powerful protective technology for paper, cotton, rayon, glass and mixed fiber media applications.

In addition to flame retardant benefits, Hycar NH3069 offers excellent mechanical performance and improved clarity compared to particulate-filled coatings. Its inherent thermal stability during processing provides improved color over halogenated polymers. With less additives required, reduced mixing, less chemical inventories and faster clean-up are possible, resulting in higher manufacturing productivity. For filtration applications, Hycar NH3069 provides a lower pressure drop compared to particulate additives.

“This new and unique, halogen-free polymer technology from Lubrizol avoids the need for heavy metals, like antimony trioxide” notes Gary Anderle, marketing manager. “It’s a game changer for many applications, and we look forward to exploring its full potential by collaborating with formulators to achieve specific flame retardance needs.”

Hycar NH3069 is part of an exciting new platform that will evolve into future flame-retardant products. It can be applied using a broad range of techniques, including knife coatings (J-box), dip and squeeze (padding), foam, gravure, screen printing and rod coating.

Posted February 6, 2019

Source: The Lubrizol Corp.