Coating & Laminating Nonwovens Directory

Two Ways to Add a Layer

Coating applies a liquid or molten layer directly to the web — polyurethane, acrylic, PVC, silicone or a hot-melt adhesive spread by knife, roller or slot die and then dried or cured in place. A coating can seal a web against water, add a printable or grippy surface, carry flame-retardant or antimicrobial chemistry, or turn the surface into a pressure-sensitive adhesive. Because the layer forms on the web, coating suits thin, precise, single-sided treatments.

Laminating joins two or more ready-made layers: film to nonwoven for waterproof-breathable membranes, foam to fabric for upholstery and automotive trim, foil to insulation, or nonwoven to nonwoven for absorbency plus strength. The joining method — hot-melt adhesive, flame lamination for foam, ultrasonic or thermal point bonding — decides the hand, the bond strength and whether the laminate can be recycled as one material or must be separated.

What the Listings Cover

The companies below are the coaters and laminators this section carries. The range is wide: Acolam, Inc (Canada) describes laminating rigid and non-rigid materials for industrial, medical, technical and consumer products, laminating leathers and nonwovens for upholstery, footwear and garments, plus antibacterial treatments and adhesive distribution; other listings cover hot-melt coating houses, foam laminators, flock specialists and toll converters who will coat or laminate a customer's own web.

That toll point matters commercially. Many nonwoven producers own no coating line, and many brands own no web at all: the coating and laminating trade exists to be hired by the metre. Minimum runs, web width, and whether the coater will handle customer-supplied material are the first questions to settle, and the listings' own descriptions state each firm's processes and markets as the firm presented them.

Specifying a Coated or Laminated Nonwoven

Specify performance, not just construction: hydrostatic head or air permeability for barrier work, peel strength for laminates, wash and flex durability for garment use, and the regulatory box the product must tick — medical, automotive flame, food contact or skin contact. Ask how the bond survives the product's real life: a laminate that delaminates after sterilisation, dry cleaning or a hot car interior was specified on day-one properties alone.

Trial metres before production metres is the trade's standing rule, because coating weight, cure and adhesive pattern interact with each specific web. The firms below can advise on those interactions for their own processes; the converters directory in the chips covers the slitting, folding and finishing that usually follows, and the composites directory covers structures where the layers are engineered as one material from the start.

Bonding Chemistry in Plain Terms

The adhesive choice follows the product's life. Polyurethane reactive hot-melts cure into bonds that survive washing, sterilisation and years of flexing, at the highest process cost; acrylic dispersions coat cheaply and print well but soften with heat; silicone release coatings make webs let go of what they touch; and flame lamination, which burns a foam surface into a bonding layer, remains the economical route for automotive and upholstery foam laminates despite its narrow material range.

Breathability is the property most often oversold. A microporous coating passes water vapour molecule by molecule; a hydrophilic film transports it by absorbing and desorbing; a cheap imperforate film simply does not breathe, whatever the brochure's droplet photographs imply. Specifiers should demand the test number — MVTR by a named method — and the coaters below who work in garment membranes will quote it without being asked twice, because their customers' garments live or fail by it.

Coating & Laminating Companies Listed Here

94 companies and organisations are listed in this directory, carried from the original Apparel Search listing with each company's country and description as originally stated. Follow a name to the company's own website.