ANDRITZ?s needlepunch line in Grupo SARI

Grupo SARI (Rubi Industrial), headquartered in Rubi, Spain, is specialised in the manufacture of nonwoven fabrics. The company has several plants in Spain and France and distributes its products mainly in Europe. It has gradually expanded its presence in various technical sectors (such as automotive, filtration, or construction) through key investments as well as increasing its R&D capabilities and continues to focus on developing its competencies in these markets to gain further relevance as a key producer of nonwovens.

In pursuit of this objective, Grupo SARI will launch this needlepunching line, with state-of-the-art ANDRITZ technology and versatile capabilities to offer a wide range of products, in order to provide the most appropriate solutions for each of the technical markets mentioned above.

ANDRITZ is a globally leading supplier of plants, equipment, and services for hydropower stations, the pulp and paper industry, the metal working and steel industries, and for solid/liquid separation in the municipal and industrial segments. Other important fields of business are animal feed and biomass pelleting, as well as automation, where ANDRITZ offers a wide range of innovative products and services in the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) sector under the brand name of Metris. In addition, the international technology Group is active in power generation (steam boiler plants, biomass power plants, recovery boilers, and gasification plants) and environmental technology (flue gas cleaning plants) and offers equipment for the production of nonwovens, dissolving pulp, and panelboard, as well as recycling plants.

Long-term partnership with BCNonwovens
ANDRITZ and BCNonwovens, Spain have been working together successfully as business partners for the past 15 years. This cooperation started in early 2003 right after BCNonwovens was founded.

By offering state-of-the-art technology, including tests and trial runs at ANDRITZ’s technical center, and providing comprehensive expert know-how, ANDRITZ has supported and helped the family-owned company BCNonwovens to become one of the leading producers of spunlace fabrics for the wipes market as well as for medical and industrial applications. BCNonwovens is now running two ANDRITZ spunlace lines successfully, producing high-quality products that are sold globally. To cope with the demand for higher productivity and product quality as well as for lighter products and patterned webs, BCNonwovens’ R&D team and ANDRITZ process engineers were able to retrofit the existing lines to bring products up to the standard currently requested by the markets. Sergio Rosales, R&D Director of BCNonwovens says: “Thanks to ANDRITZ, we have been able to test the latest innovations available on the market and adapt them to our production lines.” As BCNonwovens has always been commited to responsible and sustainable production, the company has installed ANDRITZ’s proven neXecodry system, thus achieving a significant reduction in consumption of water and gas.

Didier Vulliet, General Director of ANDRITZ Perfojet, says: “For years we have been building a strong partnership with BCNonwovens. They used our ANDRITZ spunlace pilot line for validation of new products or implementation of new fibers, and we were able to test new developments under industrial conditions.”

ANDRITZ is accompanying BCNonwovens in the development of new products with new fibers and features that are increasingly innovative or meet the demands of converters with ever more relevant end-products. Miguel Vinas Pich, CEO of BCNonwovens, concludes: “ANDRITZ has been supporting us for years in our development, which has been allowing us to offer our customers some of the most competitive and highest quality products in the world.”