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The Textile Magazine
jANUARY 2012
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33
Lenzing AG, the world market lead-
er for man-made cellulose fibers, and
the German company smartfiber AG/
Rudolstadt are expanding their mutual
co-operation. In the future Lenzing will
exclusively produce the lyocell specialty
fibers smartcel and SeaCell developed by
smartfiber at the Lenzing site in Upper
Austria.
In 2007, Lenzing already granted
smartfiber a licence for pilot production
of the new type of lyocell specialty fib-
ers. Moreover, smartfiber and Lenzing
have been co-operating for several years
to develop fabrics and on various re-
search projects.
For reasons of profitability, the pilot
plant of smartfiber is being relocated
from Rudolstadt to Lenzing in order to
be able to rapidly move ahead with the
commercial exploitation of smartcel and
SeaCell fibers in spite of rising energy
and raw material prices. The integration
of the facility in Lenzing, the world’s
largest cellulose fiber production site,
will facilitate a significantly better cost
structure. Moreover, the smartfiber pilot
plant had recently reached its capacity
limits due to the continually increasing
order volume, which no longer made it
possible to optimally co-ordinate the in-
coming orders and accept large orders.
smartfiber will continue to be responsible
for the sales and marketing of smartcel
and SeaCell.
The smartcel and SeaCell fibers are
primarily used in home textiles as well
as in the fashion and medicine segments.
The SeaCell fibers contain valuable ac-
tive substances from seaweed which
promotes health, nurtures the skin and
protects against free radicals. smartcel
sensitive is the first anti-bacterial, natu-
ral fiber available on the market to which
the essential trace element zinc is added,
thus enabling regenerative skin care and
hygiene in textiles.
The management of smartfiber con-
siders the intensified co-operation with
Lenzing to be an important and future-
oriented step for the benefit of customers
– a win-win situation for the two com-
panies involved. Thus the high level of
competence on the part of Lenzing with
respect to the production and processing
of lyocell fibers under the brand TEN-
CEL will be combined with the original
and innovative patented technology of
the function-oriented fiber products de-
veloped by smartfiber. The objective of
smartfiber is to be able to offer the best
possible quality, service-oriented order
processing and intensified sales-driven
marketing support to customers in the
future. For Lenzing the launch of pilot
production for smartfiber at the Lenzing
site is a consistent continuation of the
research and development partnership
which smartfiber and Lenzing have pur-
sued for years.
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new products