Teijin offers hope to hay-fever sufferers
26/02/2009
International travellers visiting Japan this spring might be surprised to see many people wearing gauze masks. Although some Japanese people wear masks while suffering from colds, the masks seen in springtime are often being worn for an entirely different reason, hay fever, in part due to Japan's high concentration of cedar and cypress forests.
While the masks help to mitigate the symptoms of hay fever, they do nothing to stop the pollen from clinging to the person's clothes and being carried into the home, where it can continue to affect allergy sufferers.
With pollen levels rising, apparently, and more people suffering from hay fever year by year, Teijin Fibers has begun to market its Pollenbarrier material, first developed in 2002, to the sports apparel market. A test result shows that 80% of the pollen that lands on Pollenbarrier falls off thanks to its smooth structure and special processing.
Teijin Fibers also markets an advanced version of the material, called Pollenbarrier AS, which is made from BEWELL, a highly durable polyester thread that is resistant to static electricity, thereby helping to prevent pollen from sticking to clothing.
Conventional polyester is hydrophobic, so it picks up electrostatic charge easily. Although polyester can be processed with an antistatic treatment, the effect tends to be washed out when the material is cleaned.
BEWELL is made of conjugate fibres with an antistatic polymer core sheathed in regular polyester polymer. The material also receives a special treatment developed by Teijin Fibers using antistatic agents that are dispersed on a nanoscale, so the coating is thorough.
Besides being highly antistatic, BEWELL can be handled with all the ease of conventional polyester fibres. Its soft texture is the result of the fineness of the BEWELL fibre.
Teijin claims the Pollenbarrier material also has "excellent water-shedding quality", making it a highly suitable material for sports such as golf.
The company developed BEWELL in 2006 and launched it commercially in 2007. Having raised monthly production at the company's Matsuyama plant from 20 tonnes to 90 tonnes last November, the company is now planning to add other clothing items to the BEWELL lineup, such as linings, undergarments and uniforms in 2009.
It hopes to increase monthly output to as much as 200 tonnes in the future, by developing an even finer version of the fibre as well as marketing BEWELL globally. The company is also planning to make BEWELL from chemically recycled yarn, part of an initiative to use recycled yarn for all polyester yarn the company produces in Japan.
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