The Nonwovens Institute has added a Hills, Inc. LBS-330 Lab Scale Bicomponent Melt Extrusion Unit to its Fiber and Polymer Science Lab, enhancing its ability to support members, customers, faculty, staff and students. the unit can produce continuous filament, spunbond, meltblown, and more in almost any desired cross-section requiring as little as 40 grams of polymer to make 100 meters of fiber.  

“One of the most impressive features of the LBS330 is its modular spin pack design, which allows switching between a round single-spinneret (typically 36–72 holes) and a larger rectangular 144-hole spin pack for spunbond,” says Mehmet Dasdemir, Ph.D., NWI’s Director of Product Development, “This enables the production of a significantly wider nonwoven web (220 mm) suitable for a variety of standardized testing and prototyping applications.”

The unit can also produce a 150mm wide meltblown web with either mono or bicomponent fibers, providing incredible flexibility to help customers with developing new products across a broad variety of raw materials and spunmelt technologies.

The equipment was made possible by a generous donation by Hills, Inc., West Melbourne, FL. “No where else in the world do polymer, fiber and fabric innovations come together to meet the needs of both academia and industry.  Hills and the NWI are a natural fit.  We look forward to developing tomorrow’s nonwovens together.” says Arnold Wilkie, President and Owner of Hills. 

Wilkie who has a distinguished, 55+ year career in advancing yarn, fiber, and nonwoven technologies has been involved with and supported The Nonwovens Institute since its founding in 1991 as the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC), with Hills joining as a member in 2001.  He is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from INDA – The Association of the Nonwovens Industry in 2024 and serves on the NWI Executive Committee.

“The LBS-330 joins an extensive array of rapid development capabilities in NWI’s laboratories,” noted NWI’s Executive Director Raoul Farer, Ph.D, “This includes an earlier model of the system, the Hills LBS-300, which remains in use and available to users.”  Farer added, “We greatly appreciate the generosity of Hills, Inc as well as our other commercial partners in keeping NWI’s facilities in line with the state-of-the-art for both research and development.”