Assessment of Meltblown High-Temperature Polymers for Fluorine-Free Low-Grammage Nonwoven Structures

The proposed restriction of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) covers over 10,000 different substances. The affected materials also include PFAS-related fluoropolymers such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Thus, the identification and establishment of substitutes—not only of materials, but also by alternative processing technologies—is not only environmentally desirable, but also an extremely pressing economic issue. This study deals with the potential to process high-temperature polymers into thin-layer-nonwovens. In this context, the meltblow processing of polyethersulfone (PESU) as an amorphous polymer from melt is demonstrated for the first time to the best of the authors’ knowledge. The resulting fabrics were compared with polyetheretherketone (PEEK) as a high-performance reference material owing to its excellent chemical resistance and mechanical properties, as well as to polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), the more widely used industrial standard because of its lower cost, though it exhibits a lower thermal stability, chemical resistance, and mechanical performance than PEEK. Fabrics of 10 g m−2 were successfully produced with median fiber diameters of 1.39 µm to 2.29 µm. PESU together with PPS achieved the finest median fiber diameters; however, PESU exhibited a lower tensile strength and substantially higher residual elongation than both PEEK and PPS, indicating the need for post-processing by calendering.