The Future of Technical Textile was subject of a EURATEX convention in Turkey
On November 16, 2012 the first EURATEX Convention on “The Future of Technical Textiles” in collaboration with the Turkish Textile Employers Association (TTEA) took place in Istanbul, Turkey and was attended by more than 300 participants from industry, local ministries, export associations, academics and government agencies
The main topic was the growing role of European Technical Textiles Application, and Halit Narin, President of TTEA stated: “Turkey believes in the future of the textile and particularly in the future of Technical Textiles. Cooperation between the textile industries of the EU and Turkey is paramount. The first convention in Istanbul organised jointly with EURATEX opens auspicious new perspectives. TTEA will intensify its support for scientific and technical projects on Technical Textiles”.
Alberto Paccanelli, President of EURATEX, stated that Technical Textiles have experienced significant development in recent years and added: “We must be proud of the intensification of European R&D projects in this particular highly innovative field of industry. Today, textile products are growingly present in industries as diverse as agriculture, automotive, health care, energy, construction, aerospace, etc., bringing added-value solutions to the needs of those customers. Moreover, high functionality, flexibility and cost-competitive textile products have led to the transformation of business-models in many industries using such products”.
“Current Market and Global Technical Textiles Market” was the subject of the CEO of German Heimbach GmbH, Düren, Klaus Huneke, and he outlined the importance of the EU textile and clothing industry and the role of the Technical Textile part. He referred also to the type of policies these industries need for supporting its competitiveness, and revealed that a recent German survey confirmed that Technical Textiles companies belonging to this cross-sector branch and material supplier to several industrial segments have a high innovative power by realising more than 25 % of their turnover from new innovative products, ranking third after automotive and electronics industries. A senior Consultant of Gherzi (CH), Matthias Buehrer, focused on the key developments in the global Technical Textile Market and provided an analytical look into developments and opportunities offered by the industry. He confirmed, that according to in-house research, that Technical Textiles applications worldwide, including composites and nonwovens application represented a global market volume of USD 230 billion in 2010 and USD 253 billion in 2011. Finally, a quite extensive review of the main technical avenues on which the textile and clothing community is working actually in order to provide futuristic products and to detect new needs and requirements were subject of the paper given bei Dr.-Ing. Thomas Stegmaier (ITV Denkendorf Research Institute).
The second session focused on “Technology Policies and Technical Textiles” by an EU Commission expert, John Cleuren, he gave also indications on the future EU Programme for Research and Innovation – Horizon 2020 – covering particularly the period of 2014-2020. He underlined the various opportunities offered for textile related projects, also available to non-EU 27 companies and research centres. Prof. Dr. Bülent Ozipek from Istanbul Technical University provided a summary of the main incentive programmes in R&D for the Turkish Textile and Clothing industries and a representative of EURATEX, Lutz Walther described the main activities and services offered by the European Textile Technology Platform managed by EURATEX and how Turkish companies, research institutions and technology organisations can participate from its benefits.
The third and fourth session has focused on “News Textiles Products for different Industries” and “Technical Textiles and the changing Lifestyle”. The papers of the first part were delivered by Tamer Bozaci, Plant Director at Dow Aksa Advanced Composite Materials Inc., titled “Carbon Fibre: Shaping the Future”, followed by “Innovative Solutions for Tyre Reinforcement Materials Industry” by Ertugrul Bahan, Tyre Reinforcement Technologies Manager at Kordsa Global Inc. Hüseyin Cevahiroglu, Nonwoven Expert and Consultant focused on “Nonwoven as a Technical Textile Application” and Affan Ener, Director , Technical Textiles Akin Textile Inc. concentrated on “Protective Clothing for Military and Industrial Applications”. The second part focused on “Medical Textiles Properties and End users” was the subject of Viron Kapidag – Marketing & Business Development Director at Öztex Textile Inc. and Marie-Emmanuelle Belzung, General Secretary of CELC – European Confederation of Flax and Hemp – presented “Natural Fibers and Technical Textiles” and Mutlu Sezen, R&D Manager of Korteks Inc. spoke on “New Technical Fabrics for the Future Homes”.
At the occasion of the convention the first TTEA Award “Innovation Compettion” was also bestowed, tdestined to raise the awareness of the importance of R&D activities in the textile and clothing industry as well as promoting the development of innovative products/processes resulting from collaborative projects supported by Turkish universities and local industrial companies.