The company Graute was founded in Coesfeld, Germany, in 1997 by Mr. Graute, then head of development for airlay systems at Hergeth Hollingsworth. With former employees from Hergeth Hollingsworth, airlay systems, feed machines and pre-openers were predominantly built at first. Since January 2009, the company has been led with the expertise of Norbert Höltker, who has deep theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of nonwovens technology.
Highlights in the product range
Following consistent growth, a new company site with a 1,050 m² office building and 2,300 m² assembly hall was acquired in Senden – Germany in 2015. Graute now builds the full range of machines for the manufacturing of nonwovens, from bale opening and machines for mixing and fine opening, through to complete airlay systems and carding systems with cross lapper and web drafters. A particular highlight in the product range is the high-performance card with a high-speed outlet for speeds of up to 250 m/min.
Special design concept
All of the company’s machines follow a special design concept to make them as maintenance friendly as possible and minimize downtimes. This aim is, among other things, achieved with large inspection windows for optimum visual controls and individual, retractable sections. This makes it possible, for instance, to completely take the Graute Air Lay Card apart, which significantly improves accessibility to the individual rolls and considerably simplifies cleaning and maintenance. The company not only sells new machines, but also helps its customers to convert existing systems or undertake complete modernizations. Customers particularly value the high level of flexibility offered by the company. Flat structures make it possible to help customers with problems of all kinds and find new solutions, even at short notice.
Special strength: bleached cotton
One of Graute GmbH’s strengths is its machines for processing bleached cotton.
Since the processing of bleached cotton fibers quickly causes naps, only very gentle carding may be used in the manufacturing process. For this purpose, Graute has several special machines in the program. In addition to the well-known bale openers, the Graute Mirco Tuft Opener (MTO) is particularly suitable for the fiber preparation of belached cotton fibers. This machine ensures a very gentle opening and dissolution of the fibers up to single fiber and thus ensures optimal quality of the end product. For the carding process for producing webs with 100% bleached cotton or bleached cotton and other fibers, there are several possibilities. One possibility is the aerodynamic web laying with the Graute Air Lay Card (ALC). Nonwovens with a basis weight of 40 – 300 g/m² and a ratio of longitudinal to transverse strength (MD – CD) of almost 1:1 can be produced here. To make cotton webs (> 18 g / m²) with an MD CD of 1:2.5 for e.g., for cotton wipes, Graute GmbH has the Random Card (RC) in its program. This Random Card differs from the Air Lay Card by a differently designed outlet. While in the ALC the web from the Turbo Roll is placed on a screen belt, the web removal takes place on the Random Card by means of doffer rolls. Both ALC and RC machines delight customers with their ease of maintenance. As already described, these machines can be divided into individual sections in just a few minutes, enabling fast maintenance and cleaning as well as minimizing downtimes. A particular advantage of the Graute RC and ALC is the special designed changeable outlets,so that an RC can be converted to an ALC if needed and an ALC can become in return to an RC. Thus, even years after the machine installation, the customer can adapt his production with relatively little effort and react to current customer requirements.
Producing multi-layer nonwovens cost-effectively
Another possibility to manufacture cotton web inexpensively is a Rieter card in conjunction with a Graute condensing roll system. The condensing roll system was specially developed for mounting on a Rieter C60 / C70 card and increases the grammage and improves the MD – CD ratio by reorienting the fibers. The condensing roll system with Rieter card is often used in conjunction with an Air Lay Card in order to produce cost-effective multi-layer webs. A particular advantage of this is that with a 3-or 4 layer web, such as in the production of cotton pads, the middle layer can be equipped with up to 70% recycled fiber with the help of the Air Lay Card.
Cost advantage through recycling
For the recycling of production residues and edge stripes, Graute has several machines in the program that reopen already solidified materials and return them to the process.
There are machines for the re-opening of light to medium solidified materials such as skillets that are produced during the production of cotton pads. A recent development in recent years has also been a machine for re-opening highly solidified materials such as thermobonded edge stripes. The re-opening of these edge strips, which had to be disposed of beforehand, of course leads to a cost advantage for the customer, since there are no more disposal costs and fewer new fibers are used for the production of the product.
Graute GmbH will be participating in Techtextil Frankfurt (Hall 3,0 / Stand H59) and ITMA Barcelona (Hall H5 / Stand D213).