BRÜCKNER’s new technology centre in Leonberg was jointly inaugurated at a glittering function on June 14 by Günther Oettinger, CE Commissioner for Energy, and Ms. Regina Brückner, in the presence of several leading customers of the company.
“Our focus is for years already the development of lines which are energy efficient, resource saving and optimally designed for our customers. Solely our productive and flexible manufacturing in Germany allows us to meet the high expectations of our customers and to supply our products rapidly and with consistently high quality”, emphasized Ms. Regina Brückner in her address. “In this context, we developed a completely new and energy-efficient machine generation which we put now into operation with a celebration in our technology centre at our Leonberg site and which is available for test and development purposes.”
Dr. Klaus Jansen, Managing Director of the German Board of Trustees for Textile Research (Forschungskuratorium für Textil), in his address, outlined the many opportunities and possibilities of the textile world. Which changes have to be strived at and which products must be realized to be well prepared for the future? And which fields of applications will exist in future for textiles, which materials will be replaced?
Dr. Jansen cited numerous examples, particularly adaptive sun protection with energy generation, construction materials made of renewable raw materials, textile substrates for bio-mass growing, energy storage in fibres and textiles and, last but not the least, the recycling of garments and the integration of function into fibres.
The guest of honour, Günther Oettinger, CE Commissioner for Energy, emphasized the importance and creativity of the German small and medium-sized companies that provide for clearly more jobs than the big industry. He reiterated the need for future growth in German manufacturing industry instead of moving production-related jobs abroad.
At the same time, he showed a lot of understanding for textile companies in Germany which brought in an action against the EEG (German Renewable Energy Act) contribution. It is unacceptable that companies do invest to reduce their energy cost, but have to pay therefore clearly more EEG contribution. Such companies have no possibility to plan and the jobs are in danger. In his opinion there are rightly doubts about the constitutionality of the EEG contribution.
Nevertheless he deemed it important to continue in saving energy costs, and congratulated BRÜCKNER on the new successful machine concept which is an important support for the textile processing industry towards reduction in energy consumption. With the construction of its technology centre, BRÜCKNER reassures its empoyees, customers and partners that Germany will continue to be its destination for future expansion.
Günther Oettinger further empasized that it is important for the German industry to have tradition-conscious family-owned enterprises, and praised again the considerable investment at the company base in Leonberg.
Axel Pieper explained in his speech the numerous benefits of the technology centre, and presented the testing machine in detail. “During the planning phase of a complex machine it is often necessary to make extensive pretests. The new line shall support our customers to develop new products, to make tests, evaluate them in our own laboratory and to define the exact machine configuration for a later production. Together with our own technologists we can thus make the bridge between machinery and process technology. Up to now such tests could be made only on laboratory scale. But in future we can make these tests in our own house and in close dialogue with customers and partners of the chemical industry. In addition, the BRÜCKNER’s own testing line is an ideal basis for further product developments and optimizations”.
The technology centre offers different coating and finishing possibilities for tests on a production scale. For those interested, it is possible to rent the hall and the machine. In addition, the experienced technologists with an extensive knowledge of the machines can give valuable hints about the latest technologies.
For commission finishers the centre offers to make pretests before starting new production. BRÜCKNER is looking forward to develop new products with customers and to implement new ideas.
With the dry laminating calender, BRÜCKNER can offer different laminating techniques, for example, for functional material composites, for pressing of foam coating systems, pressing of foams for tightness, protection barriers against chemicals, vapour barriers and the connection of different substrate materials. The lamination technique will find its application mainly in the field of technical textiles.
Heat-setting with the latest energy-saving dryer generation: The heat-setting process has established itself for finishing of fabric types when certain characteristics shall be positively influenced, for example, to increase the material strength or to suppress the shrinking effect when heat is added. Heat-setting processes are also suitable for the functionalizing of non-wovens. In addition, the new line offers the possibility to finish fabric with up to 270°C, which is particularly required in case of some applications in the field of technical textiles.
The additional process monitoring with straighteners to correct inclined or bow distortions, fabric centering units, measuring of weight per m² and thickness allows to make optimizations during the execution of the test. An exactly reproducible documentation allows in addition to transfer the parameters to further processes. The testing line can be used for manifold processes and applications with different fabric types.
In detail the new machine offers the following possibilities:
Finishing and functionalizing with a padder: The increasing requirements regarding resistance (for example, washing resistance, fastness) and functionality (for example, flame protection, water repellency, antistatic) of textiles require a number of new technologies to be developed. For the purpose, close co-ordination among the textile substrate, finishing system and the extensive machine knowhow is extremely important.
Application with the minimum application process: The application with a minimum application process can save an enormous amount of energy. The optimum interaction of chemistry and machinery engineering is of considerable importance. For technical textiles and functional textiles, the company is offering in its testing line the possibility of a minimum application with dosing roller or floating knife.
Coating with knife-over-air or knife against cylinder, dosing roller or rotary screen: The testing line allows coating of water-based pastes and stable foams as well as application technologies for full-faced and intermittent coating, as also laminating with the dry laminating calender.