Development of Thermal Bonded Non-woven Fabrics Made from Recycled Cotton and Polyester Fibers for Sound Absorption

Abstract

Recycled fibers are commonly used in different applications and one of the most important applications is sound absorption. Recycled fiber non-woven, currently, are in greater demands in industries because of their advantages such as low cost, biodegradability, acceptable mechanical & physical properties and so on. Sound absorption materials, renewable and eco-friendly thermal bonded nonwoven have been developed using recycled cotton and polyester fibers. Six types of recycled nonwovens samples were developed using thermal bonding and air compression methods. The blending ratio of cotton and polyester fibers was 60:40. Sound absorption coefficient was measured by impedance tube method (ASTM E 1050). The recycled fiber non-woven samples were characterized for their physical properties such as areal density, bulk density thickness, porosity, air permeability and thermal resistance was determined for all the samples according to the ASTM standards. The results exposed that recycled cotton/polyester nonwoven samples with its physical properties showed, superior sound absorption at 4000Hz, lower thermal resistance, lower air permeability, then compared with recycled cotton/polyester are corresponding to the achieved level but it was lower in recycled cotton/ polyester non-woven samples. But at superior frequencies (4000 Hz), there was a decrease from the achieved level in all the nonwoven samples which might be enhanced by increasing the thickness of the nonwovens. The average sound resistance percentages of these three decibel values were calculated and compared for all the samples.