The establishment of bio-based alternatives to established olefin-based plastics is one of the current key research topics. However, biobased polymers often still suffer to be limited in processability in various processing technologies or in application performance. While PLA (polylactic acid) has been established as the first biobased polymer on an industrial scale over the last 20 years, polyethylene furanoate (PEF) has been identified as a biobased alternative or supplement to polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in various applications such as food packaging and bottles as well as for technical and high-performance fibers. Further, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) have been focussed, although they are still limited on injection molded and/or electrospun applications.

At the DITF Denkendorf, the processing of PLA, PEF and PHA nonwovens in the meltblow process was successfully demonstrated. PEF was shown to be competitive or even superior in filtration performance compared to PET and PBT fabrics of similar grammage concerning achievable fiber diameters, mechanical strength and filtration performance. PEF as well as PLA can therefore be viable, biobased alternatives, especially for high-temperature applications where thin layers are required. The potential of PHAs indeed, especially of P3HB poly(3–hydroxybutyrate) was shown to target different applications.

Nonwoven structures with fiber diameter distributions ranging from 2.5 µm to 20 µm could be laid down, exceeding [ ... ], low elongations at break (max. 3%), and a lack of flexibility using the copolymer PHBH (poly(3–hydroxybutyrate–co–3–hydroxyhexanoate). Furthermore, the high melt adhesion and the special crystallization kinetics of PHAs have commonly been regarded as constraints in filament and nonwoven processing so far. However, these two properties have now been used to elaborate a three-dimensional fiber arrangement on a matrix, resulting in [ ... ]. These offer an interesting array of properties by combining moderate air permeability and hydrophobicity, leading to water impermeability...