Needle-punchednonwoven technology is considered to be a forward technology and is one of thepromising alternatives very much suited to the jute industry. Needle-punchednonwoven technology appears to be particularly relevant to the jute industry inview of its high productivity and low wage component of the production costassociated with it. Besides, this offers a means of diversifying into variousvalue added product, which would fetch better returns to the industry usingeven waste fibres. Today, production of jute needle-punched nonwoven fabric islimited to a few thousand tons of needled felts used mainly for packaging,cushioning and carpet under laying. Thus, much of the jute needle-punchednonwoven textiles remain untapped. The researches on jute based needle-punchednonwoven have been carried out in following broad areas:

1.      Use of un-spinnable fibre wastes,

2.      To identify and characterize thedifferent uses,

3.      Blending of jute with othernatural or synthetic fibres,

4.      To study the structure-property relations

Outof various systems of needle-punched nonwoven preparation, parallel laid, crosslaid and air laid batts are appears to be suitable in fabric preparation withneedle punched and adhesive bonded needle-punched nonwoven technologies,particularly with relevant to jute. The appropriate technology of manufacturingjute needle-punched nonwovens not only produces the diversified products fromjute but also creates the value addition. Jute needle-punched nonwoven productsoffer cost effective and market oriented diversification for jute. However,more extensive research, intensive production and marketing expertise have tobe built into the jute sector to make jute needle-punched nonwovens acommercial success for jute diversification.

Thispaper initially deals with jute, its properties and advantages. Thereafter,special emphasis has been given on preparation and properties of jute basedneedle-punched nonwoven and different potential applications on technicaltextiles.

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The author of this article S.Sengupta, S. Debnath, S. Mondal, J. Saha, B. Ghosh, K K Satapathy areassociated as Scientist & Sr. Scientist with Institute of Research on Jute & Allied Fibre Technology, IndianCouncil of Agricultural Research, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.