Based at the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University, The Nonwovens Institute (NWI) is a consortium of stakeholders spanning the breadth of the nonwovens value chain. Operating on an “Open Innovation” platform and covering the full Technology Readiness Level (TRL) range, NWI engages industry, government and academia to enable next-generation nonwoven solutions to mission-critical challenges.

The institute will be present at Hygienix, along with LINC, LLC, a non-profit organization wholly-owned by and operated in furtherance of the purposes of, the NC State University Partnership Corporation,. As a manufacturing incubator, LINC is focused on commercializing niche high-value technical nonwoven products, which can be difficult to achieve alone due to high capital expenditures.

 A manufacturing incubator allow new products to be introduced into the marketplace before significant investment is required from an industrial partner. This becomes even more critical for new products that require specialized equipment or components. In almost all cases, no manufacturing entity can initially produce the product and, therefore, there exists a natural barrier to commercialization.  LINC can help facilitate the initial phase of introduction and testing of the products by limited manufacturing of the products for the companies interested in licensing the technologies developed at the Nonwovens Institute.