Absorbent Articles

A Growing, Global Market Segment

Dow Health and Hygiene - Absorbent Articles The infant and adult absorbents and feminine hygiene application segments account for more than $45 billion in global revenue and growing. In particular, developing geographies are emerging as key users of hygiene products.¹

With global reach and commitment to engaging converters and brand owners alike in innovation relationships, Dow is a leading global supplier into Health & Hygiene applications. Dow's Health & Hygiene business is focused on making products softer, more absorbent, leak free, and form-fitting - with the ultimate goal of improving comfort and skin health - through innovative thinking and materials science know-how.

Dow understands the importance of delivering new features and achieving higher performance at lower total costs. And, for converters, Dow offers a broad mix of plastics and materials science innovations to address requirements for higher throughput, downgauging, and material substitution.

 

A Broad, Innovative Offering for Absorbent Articles

Plastics from Dow are used to make virtually all of the critical components in diapers and feminine pads.

In diapers, for instance, the primary liquid barrier is a polyethylene backing film or back sheet. Back sheets are typically about one-mil (25µm) cast or blown films composed of blends of DOW™ Linear Low Density Poly Ethylene (LLDPE) Resins, DOWLEX™ Polyethylene (PE) Resins, or ELITE™ Enhanced Polyethylene (EPE) Resins and DOW™ Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) Resins. Dow's product and technology agility allows for excellent combinations of processability, impact or abuse resistance.

Dow also offers a strong lineup of specialty plastics such as AFFINITY™ Polyolefin Plastomers, VERSIFY™ Plastomers & Elastomers, and INFUSE™ Olefin Block Copolymers to build the elastic and adhesive components, as well as ASPUN™ Fiber Grade Resins for the top and absorptive layers. ASPUN resins can also be combined with novel polyolefins for soft nonwovens, spun in bicomponent spunbond with Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) cores for softness, and combined with both polypropylene and PET for bicomponent staple fibers for absorbent cores.

In fact, Dow offers the broadest range of innovative, flexible solutions to enable key performance attributes for both film and nonwoven materials in absorbent articles.

  • Breathability and permeability - usually defined by air or water vapor flow rates, Dow is helping to lead the way in back sheet technology
  • Hydrohead or water pressure resistance
  • Cross Direction and Machine Direction tensile and impact strength - at both room temperature and low temperature
  • Comfort - derived from soft touch and conformance to the body
  • Leak resistance - enhanced by the use of elastic leg gathers, waistbands, or side panels



¹John Starr Inc. Research (2005)


®™*Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company ("Dow") or an affiliated company of Dow.