As the 19th China International Trade Fair for Technical Textiles and Nonwovens (CINTE26) concluded at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, what lingers is not just the bustling booths. The move by carding equipment maker Jinlun Carding to present full-process solutions for spunlace, thermal bond, and needlepunch, along with its presence in the special zone for the '15th Five-Year Plan,' signals that the high-end shift in nonwovens is turning from slogan into hard equipment standards.
Event Signals: High-End No Longer Optional
CINTE26 is regarded as a benchmark event for nonwovens in the Asia-Pacific. This edition sent a clear signal: technical textiles are approaching the eve of the '15th Five-Year Plan,' and high-end transformation is evolving from voluntary corporate action into a policy-guided industrial consensus. By placing innovative exhibits in the special zone within Hall W5, Jinlun Carding made a statement—equipment makers are proactively aligning with national industrial directions rather than passively waiting for market demand.
The logic behind this alignment is practical. Carding is a critical pre-step in spunlace, thermal bond, and needlepunch processes; its quality directly determines web uniformity and final product performance. As downstream customers increasingly demand high basis weight, high speed, and low energy consumption, traditional carding machines face amplified issues like neps and fiber damage at high speeds. Jinlun Carding's solutions for 'high yield, high speed, and high quality' target these production pain points.
Notably, leading enterprises including Andritz, Anhui Jinchun, Shandong Yongxin, Jiangsu Huafeng, and Huafu Group visited the booth for in-depth discussions on product adaptation, process optimization, line efficiency, and technology iteration. This indicates that the collaboration between equipment suppliers and product manufacturers is shifting from a buyer-seller relationship to joint development. High-end transformation is not a single breakthrough but a coordinated upgrade across the entire supply chain.
Industry Impact: Three Tests for Carding Equipment
Looking ahead to the '15th Five-Year Plan' period, the high-end development of nonwovens poses at least three tests for carding equipment.
The first is fine-tuned process adaptability. Spunlace, thermal bond, and needlepunch have distinct requirements for web structure: spunlace needs uniform webs with high cohesion, thermal bond seeks a balance between loft and strength, and needlepunch emphasizes oriented fiber arrangement. Whether a machine can quickly switch processes through modular design while maintaining stability at high speeds will determine its irreplaceability on customer lines. Jinlun's comprehensive carding solutions partly answer the possibility of 'one machine, multiple processes.'
The second is rebalancing efficiency and quality. As nonwoven lines accelerate, issues like disordered fibers, cloudiness, and fiber entanglement may increase. How to maintain stable CV values at speeds of hundreds of meters per minute through card clothing tooth design, spacing optimization, and online detection is a technical threshold. For buyers, this means evaluating equipment not only on capacity parameters but also on actual performance across different raw materials and basis weights.
The third is the ability to capture policy dividends. The special zone for the '15th Five-Year Plan' hints at stronger policy support for technical textiles, but dividends will not be evenly distributed. Equipment makers that can deliver stable high-end capacity, align with green and low-carbon directions, and respond quickly are more likely to gain advantages in project approvals, technical upgrade subsidies, and demonstration line selections. The high attention to Jinlun's exhibits suggests that downstream companies are already positioning for the policy window.
For nonwoven factories, equipment selection is shifting from 'good enough' to 'slightly ahead.' Forward-thinking owners realize that waiting for order upgrades before replacing equipment means missing at least a half-year window; reserving high-end carding capabilities now allows them to seize opportunities in high-value segments like medical, filtration, and automotive. This may explain the intense technical exchanges at the show—participants are not just looking at machines, but at their competitive positions for the next three to five years.