A review of the melt blown process

The melt blown process produces a fine fiber, small pore size, nonwoven web directly from polymer chips. The web is formed entirely of a given polymer without the need of added binders, finishes or thermal bonding of the fibers. A variety of additives can be put in with the polymer to affect the end properties of the web: similar to any other extrusion based process. The web can undergo further processing such as calendering to produce finer pore sizes. These webs have been found to be useful as a battery separator, especially in alkaline chemistries. This paper gives a general review of the process.