Nonwoven Laminates Containing Cotton for Medical Applications

Abstract

Conventional cotton textiles have been largely replaced in medical/ surgical areas with reusable and disposable synthetic fabric items. The best hope for keeping cotton in these important medical/surgical market areas is in the form of environmentally friendly disposable products. The developments described in this paper will provide materials with high cotton content having better barrier perfor mance required for today's protective clothing in medical applications. The cotton based laminates have been compared with commercially available gowns obtained from DeRoyal Industries made using Kimberly-Clark's Spunbond/Melt Blown/ Spundbond (SMS) and Kappler Safety Group's Spunbond/Microporous film lami nate (PRO/VENT™).

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