Development of Needle Punched Nonwovens from Natural Fiber Waste for Thermal Insulation Application

The growing environmental awareness throughout the world has triggered a shift toward developing environmentally friendly materials from renewable resources. This work aims to develop needle punched nonwoven fabrics from textile waste for thermal insulation application and also to analyze the influence of porosity and air permeability of the nonwovens on thermal insulation performance. The needle punched nonwovens were manufactured using comber noil, silk cocoon waste, and polyester/cotton flat strip waste. Also, a nonwoven has been developed by blending comber noil with silk cocoon waste (50/50%). It was found that the nonwoven developed from 100% silk cocoon waste has better thermal insulation value (0.201 m2K/W) compared to 100% comber noil and polyester/cotton flat strip waste. It was also found that blending silk cocoon fiber with comber noil improves the thermal insulation of the nonwovens. 50/50 silk cocoon/ comber noil nonwoven has a good thermal insulation value (0.212 m2K/W) among the developed nonwovens. There is an increase in thermal insulation observed with an increase in porosity of nonwovens. The test results showed that all the developed nonwovens have excellent thermal insulation performance and are comparable with that of conventional insulation materials.