Recycling of cotton and polyester fibers to produce nonwoven fabric for functional sound absorption material

Recycled fibers are commonly used in dissimilar applications and one of the most important applications is sound absorption. Recycled fiber nonwovens currently are in greater demands in industries because of their advantages such as low cost, biodegradability, acceptable mechanical and physical properties, and so on. Sound absorption materials, renewable, and eco-friendly nonwovens have been developed using recycled cotton and polyester fibers. This research provides a contribution to the body of knowledge on the sound absorption properties of nonwovens using recycled fibers which contain cotton and polyester by means of spun-laid technique and provides a better understanding of the effects of a number of manufacturing processes on nonwovens noise control performance and also contributes to the wider adoption of nonwovens as sound absorbers. The sound absorption coefficients were measured according to ASTM E 1050 by an impedance tube method. The results revealed that the average of the sound absorption coefficients increased with the thickness of the nonwovens, but decreased with the nonwoven fabric density.