HORGEN, Switzerland -- Theres a very good chance that you have touched a nonwoven material today if you:

• Changed a baby diaper
• Carried groceries home in a reusable bag
• Closed the curtains in a hotel room
• Visited a doctors office or hospital
• Used a feminine hygiene product
• Polished your furniture, cleaned your bathroom or kitchen counter
• Drove a car

You may not think about these moments, but The Dow Chemical Company scientists do.

For more than 30 years, the company has been using its technology to make nonwoven materials and wet wipes stronger, more absorbent, more durable and softer to the touch, among other things.

And, since 2009, Dow has been introducing a family of products for the textiles and nonwovens market with increasingly lower amounts of formaldehyde in them  a particular challenge since formaldehyde forms naturally in nature and remains an important building block for the performance and value of a broad array of consumer and industrial products.

Yet there is a small, but growing consumer market segment that wants the best performance characteristics of the latest nonwovens technology, but made without formaldehyde.

Dow is pleased to introduce the PRIMAL™ ECONEXT™ Technology Platform - a series of ultra-low formaldehyde binders that allow companies to make end-use nonwoven products without detectable levels of formaldehyde. "We are pleased with this breakthrough," says John Haigh, technical services and development manager for this technology in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Companies can use this family of binders knowing that they were made without formaldehyde, and that it does not generate formaldehyde as it cross links with the nonwoven material it is binding."

Haigh points out that this family of products helps customers meet increasingly stringent industry standards, such as the OEKO-TEX 100 standard for textile raw materials, intermediates and end products. (The OEKO-TEX Association is a third party certifier that evaluates products used in textile applications.)

The first three products from this platform - PRIMAL™ ECONEXT™ 110, 210 and 230 - can be used for disposable and re-usable nonwoven applications, but are particularly useful in market applications which might be formaldehyde sensitive - wipes, baby and adult diapers, medical/hospital underpads, medical packaging, drapes, gowns and facemasks. Like other nonwovens products from Dow, the products from this new technology platform offer excellent wet strength, rapid fluid penetration (or hydrophobicity) and a soft hand. Dow has been making low and extremely low formaldehyde binders for textiles and nonwovens since the PRIMAL ECO™ line of products were first brought to market a few years ago.

The PRIMAL ECONEXT Technology Platform builds upon Dows earlier successes and well-known expertise in acrylic emulsion technology, which stretches back to the 1940s and the commercial success of water-based, acrylic consumer paints which created the consumer do-it-yourself market. Dow began working on low formaldehyde formulations for paint binders in the 1990s, and was the first to bring what was then called "formaldehyde-free" binders for the creation of home insulation in 2002, which eliminated all binder related emissions of formaldehyde during its manufacture. This breakthrough earned a top-ten ranking from the European Environmental Press in 2007, in association with the European Association of Environmental Professionals.

Source: Dow Chemical Company