VACUUM CLEANER FILTER BAG WITH RECYCLED TEXTILE MATERIALS AND/OR COTTON LINERS

Abstract

The present invention relates to vacuum cleaner filter bags made of waste products of the textile industry. In addition, possibilities for use of waste products of the textile industry for vacuum cleaner filter bags are indicated.

Claims

1. A vacuum cleaner filter bag, comprising walls, surrounding an interior, made of an air-permeable material and defining an inlet opening, wherein the air-permeable material comprises at least one layer of a nonwoven and/or of a fibrous web, which comprises fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material from the production of textiles and/or cotton linters.

2. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein the fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material is selected from the group consisting of textile fibres made of cotton, polyester, elastane, flax, linen, hemp, camel hair, llama, mohair, polyamide, polyethylene, ramie, silk, viscose, jute, coir, modal, polyacryl, polypropylene, sheep wool, sisal, goat hair, and cotton dust, and mixtures and/or combinations hereof.

3. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein the at least one layer of nonwoven comprising fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material and/or cotton linters comprises up to 95% by weight of the fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material and/or cotton linters and at least 5% by weight of binding fibres, in or consists thereof.

4. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 3, wherein the binding fibres have staple fibres with a length of 2 to 75 mm.

5. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 3, wherein the bicomponent fibres include a core, consisting of a first thermoplastic material and a shell, consisting of a second thermoplastic material which, compared with the first thermoplastic material, melts at lower temperatures, the core or both core and shell consisting of a recycled plastic material or a plurality of recycled plastic materials.

6. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein the air-permeable material has a multilayer construction, the air-permeable material, in addition to the at least one layer of the nonwoven and/or fibrous web which comprises fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material and/or cotton linters, having at least one further layer which comprises a nonwoven and/or a fibrous web or is formed herefrom, wherein at least one, a plurality of, or all of the additional layers comprising one or more recycled plastic materials or being formed herefrom.

7. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein the air-permeable material comprises at least one spunbonded fabric layer, at least one fine filter layer and at least one capacity layer, or comprises at least one support layer and at least one capacity layer, at least one or all of the support layers representing nonwovens and/or at least one or all of the capacity layers representing nonwovens or fibrous webs which comprise a recycled plastic material or a plurality of recycled plastic materials, or are formed herefrom, or at least one support layer, at least one fine filter layer and at least one capacity layer, at least one or all of the support layers and/or at least one or all of the fine filter layers representing nonwovens which are formed from a recycled plastic material or a plurality of recycled plastic materials, wherein at least one, preferably all of the capacity layers comprising the nonwoven which comprises fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material and/or cotton linters, or are formed herefrom.

8. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 7, wherein a) every support layer is a spunbonded fabric or scrim, with a grammage of 5 to 80 g/m2, and/or preferably with a titre of the fibres forming the spunbonded fabric or scrim in the range of 0.5 dtex to 15 dtex, b) the air-permeable material comprises 1 to 3 support layers, c) in the case of the presence of at least two support layers, the total grammage of the sum of all the support layers is 10 to 240 g/m2 and/or d) all the support layers are formed from a recycled plastic material or from a plurality of recycled plastic materials.

9. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 7, wherein a) each fine filter layer is an extrusion nonwoven, in particular a meltblown nonwoven, preferably with a grammage of 5 to 100 g/m2, b) the air-permeable material comprises 1 to 5 fine filter layers, c) in the case of the presence of at least two fine filter layers, the total grammage of the sum of all of the fine filter layers is 10 to 300 g/m2, d) at least one, of the fine filter layers are formed from a recycled plastic material or a plurality of recycled plastic materials, and/or e) at least one, of the fine filter layers are charged electrostatically.

10. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 7, wherein a) at least one capacity layer is a nonwoven which comprises fibrous, and/or dust-like recycled material from the production of textiles, and/or cotton linters, every capacity layer having a grammage of 5 to 200 g/m2, b) the air-permeable material has 1 to 5 capacity layers, and/or c) in the case of the presence of at least two capacity layers, the total grammage of the sum of all the capacity layers is 10 to 300 g/m2.

11. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 7, wherein the air-permeable material has a multilayer configuration, with a layer sequence, viewed from the interior of the vacuum cleaner filter bag: a support layer, at least one capacity layer, a further support layer, at least one fine filter layer and also one further support layer.

12. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein the vacuum cleaner filter bag has a retaining plate enclosing the inlet opening, which is formed from one or more recycled plastic materials or comprises one or more recycled plastic materials.

13. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein at least one flow distributor and/or at least one diffuser are disposed in the interior, the at least one flow distributor and/or the at least one diffuser being formed from a recycled plastic material or a plurality of recycled plastic materials or from a nonwoven which comprises fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material from the production of textiles, in particular cotton textiles and/or cotton linters.

14. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein the recycled plastic material is selected from the group consisting of: recycled polyesters, in particular recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET), recycled polybutylene terephthalate (rPBT), recycled polylactic acid (rPLA), recycled polyglycolide and/or recycled polycaprolactone; recycled polyolefins, in particular recycled polypropylene (rPP), recycled polyethylene and/or recycled polystyrene (rPS); and recycled polyvinyl chloride (rPVC), recycled polyamides; and also mixtures and combinations hereof.

15. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, wherein the weight proportion of all recycled materials and/or of the cotton linters, relative to the total weight of the vacuum cleaner filter bag, is at least 25%.

16. The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to claim 1, in the form of a flat bag, a block-base bag, or a 3D bag.

17. A method of manufacturing a vacuum cleaner filter bag, the method comprising using nonwovens which comprise fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material from the production of textiles, in particular cotton textiles and/or cotton linters, for vacuum cleaner filter bags.

18. A bicomponent fibre of the core-shell type (core-core bicomponent fibre) comprising a core made of a recycled plastic material, in particular at least one of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) or recycled polypropylene (rPP).

19. The bicomponent fibre according to claim 18, wherein the shell is formed from a virgin plastic material, in particular polypropylene.

20. The bicomponent fibre according to claim 18, wherein the shell comprises one or more charge-persistence additives, in particular magnesium stearate.

21. The bicomponent fibre according to claim 18, wherein the weight proportion of the core, relative to the total fibre, is from 50 to 95% by weight.

22. The bicomponent fibre according to claim 18, wherein the diameter of the bicomponent fibre is 0.5 to 10 ?m.

Description

EXAMPLE 1

[0094]

TABLE-US-00001 Grammage Weight per bag Proportion of [g/m.sup.2] [g] recyclate [%] Support layers outside 25 4.2 100 Meltblown 15 2.5 0 Meltblown 15 2.5 0 Support layer centrally 17 2.9 100 Capacity layer C 35 5.9 80 Capacity layer D 35 5.9 80 Support layer inside 15 2.5 100 Retaining plate 5.0 0 Total filter bag 31.4 60.5

[0095] The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to Example 1 is thereby likewise formed from a 7-layer air-permeable material. A support layer (outside) is hereby disposed on the clean-air side, on which, in the direction of the interior, two fine filter layers (meltblown on virgin PP) abut. The two meltblown layers are enclosed by a further support layer. Two capacity layers C and D abut hereon and are enclosed in a seal by a support layer situated on the dirty air side (inside). The capacity layer C and D is thereby formed from a nonwoven material which is formed up to 80% by weight from cotton dust and up to 20% from BiCo binding fibre. This nonwoven material is described in detail in WO 2011/057641 A1. The proportion of cotton dust in the capacity layers is thereby added to the total proportion of recyclate.

[0096] With such an embodiment, a proportion of recycled material, i.e. the sum of recycled plastic materials, and also cotton dust of 60.5% by weight, relative to the total vacuum cleaner filter bag, is achieved.

EXAMPLE 2

[0097]

TABLE-US-00002 Grammage Weight per bag Proportion of [g/m.sup.2] [g] recyclate [%] Support layers outside 25 4.2 100 Meltblown 15 2.5 0 Meltblown 15 2.5 0 Support layer centrally 17 2.9 100 Capacity layer A 35 5.9 100 Capacity layer D 35 5.9 80 Support layer inside 15 2.5 100 Retaining plate 5.0 0 Total filter bag 31.4 64.3

[0098] The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to Example 2 is thereby constructed analogously to the vacuum cleaner filter bag according to Example 1. The outer capacity layer thereby corresponds to a capacity layer according to Examples 6 to 8, i.e. to a carded staple fibre nonwoven which is formed up to 100% from fibres made of recycled PET. The recyclate proportion of a finished vacuum cleaner filter bag corresponds to 64.3% by weight.

EXAMPLE 3

[0099]

TABLE-US-00003 Grammage Weight per bag Proportion of [g/m.sup.2] [g] recyclate [%] Support layers outside 25 4.2 100 Meltblown 15 2.5 0 Meltblown 15 2.5 0 Support layer centrally 17 2.9 100 Capacity layer C 35 5.9 80 Capacity layer D 35 5.9 80 Support layer inside 15 2.5 100 Retaining plate 5.0 100 Total filter bag 31.4 76.4

[0100] The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to Example 3 corresponds to a vacuum cleaner filter bag according to Example 1 with the difference that the retaining plate is formed up to 100% from rPET. The total proportion of recycled materials in this vacuum cleaner filter bag is 76.4% by weight.

EXAMPLE 4

[0101]

TABLE-US-00004 Grammage Weight per bag Proportion of [g/m.sup.2] [g] recyclate [%] Support layers outside 25 4.2 100 Meltblown 15 2.5 80 Meltblown 15 2.5 80 Support layer centrally 17 2.9 100 Capacity layer C 35 5.9 80 Capacity layer D 35 5.9 80 Support layer inside 15 2.5 100 Retaining plate 5.0 100 Total filter bag 31.4 89.3

[0102] The vacuum cleaner filter bag according to Example 4 corresponds to the vacuum cleaner filter bag according to Example 3, with the difference that the two fine filter layers are formed from a bicomponent meltblown with a core made of rPET and a shell made of polypropylene. The total proportion of recyclate of such a vacuum cleaner filter bag is 89.3% by weight.

[0103] The present invention relates in addition to a special bicomponent fibre which is suitable in particular for the production of a nonwoven which comprises a fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material from the production of textiles. This bicomponent fibre is thereby used for binding the fibrous and/or dust-like recycled material. This bicomponent fibre is of the core-shell type (core-core-bicomponent fibre) and comprises a core made of a recycled plastic material which represents in particular recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) or recycled polypropylene (rPP).

[0104] A preferred embodiment provides that the shell is formed from a virgin plastic material, in particular polypropylene.

[0105] The shell can hereby comprise the charge-persistence additives, in particular magnesium stearate.

[0106] The weight proportion of the core, relative to the total fibre, is preferably from 50 to 95% by weight.

[0107] In particular, the bicomponent fibre has a diameter of 0.5 to 10 ?m. The bicomponent fibre hereby has in particular a circular cross-section.