Reutlingen, June 2010. Following last year's slump, the paper industry is slowly starting to turn around. On the heels of a challenging year shaped by the financial restructuring of its parent company, Xerium Technologies Inc., Huyck.Wangner too is once again optimistic about the future: Behind the scenes, the company's Reutlingen and Gloggnitz-based development engineers have put last year's announced investments to work developing new, unique clothing technology that sets new benchmarks in paper manufacturing. Above all, the new forming fabrics and press felt designs aim to better utilize resources and improve productivity in paper production. They help papermakers striving to add value and improve the sustainability of their paper production processes achieve both economic and ecological targets.

Securing lasting growth through product innovation is item number one on Huyck.Wangner's business agenda. A respected manufacturer of paper machine clothing, the company made use of last year to even better position itself in the paper industry as the leading supplier of its current generation of products. Since the end of May, this objective has been accompanied by a return to a secure financial footing. The company aims to generate sixty percent of its revenue based on product innovations currently being introduced to the market by 2012.

Huyck.Wangner's parent company, Xerium Technologies Inc., has completed a financial restructuring initiative and reduced its debt by about 150 million US dollars. As a result, Xerium companies around the world once again have a comfortable capital cushion that makes room for important investments in product development and manufacturing. In addition, the company kept its promise to continue supplying and supporting its customers during the restructuring phase without compromising performance in any way - another sign of the mutual trust between Huyck.Wangner, supplier of unique clothing products and reliable service, and its customers.

New products - New product launches since 2008

SSB technology, developed, patented and introduced to the market by Huyck.Wangner in 1999 under the trade name huytexx, was the last major revolution in forming fabrics. Today the structurally bound fabrics are one of the de facto papermaking standards. The same clothing specialist is now again leading the charge to a new era with EDC (Engineered Drainage Channels) - a completely new forming fabric design, patented worldwide, which offers papermakers significantly better production and resource utilization efficiency.

Forming fabric performance is mainly defined by its behavior in the initial fabric drainage section of the paper machine. By thinking out of the box, development engineers shifted the focus from the fabric structure to a specially formed drainage channel, which in conjunction with the paper side topography, paves the way to optimum sheet formation. With EDC and the associated drainage control, developers have zeroed in on the fabric design properties that give papermakers the best performance characteristics/savings potential when it comes to energy consumption and production costs or higher output, while maintaining top paper quality.

Measurements taken during test runs and on initial installations have confirmed the advantages of the new technology compared to SSB.

The forming fabric portfolio will be sequentially replaced by fabrics having the new EDC characteristics. Following the introduction of apexx to the newsprint segment, the company recently launched formexx, which is applied in the manufacture of graphic papers. The next member of the forming fabric product family, finetexx, to be used for producing magazine and specialty papers, will be launched shortly.

As was the case when it introduced SSB forming fabrics, the leading clothing specialist Huyck.Wangner's EDC technology raises the bar to a significantly higher notch. With the new generation of forming fabrics, papermakers now have access to clothing that for the first time ideally combines the two key parameters - top paper quality and cost efficiency - with energy consumption attributes, which gives them a valuable lead in their markets.

Maximum production efficiency driven by ever-higher machine speeds and continuously declining energy consumption: this is also the formula that defines Huyck.Wangner's development efforts in the area of press fabrics. The company's press felts are the uncontested leader in the premium segment. In 2008, the clothing supplier launched its exxact product generation, a woven felt that is unique to this day because it is the world's first press felt manufactured with two different warp systems. The design's perfect drainage performance is based on this combination and the use of multi-shaft weaving technology. The ever-increasing sales of exxact confirm that papermakers are extremely satisfied with the outstanding performance of this new generation of felts.

With the new IMPACT technology, Huyck.Wangner is for the first time offering nonwoven technology, thus closing a gap in its premium segment. Unique yarn technology together with a newly arranged felt structure are at the core of the design. Special properties enable every single yarn to absorb an enormous amount of water. The structure behaves like a sponge that is immediately saturated with water. At the same time, the yarns are inter-connected by a multidimensional linked layer that makes the felts extremely stable.

Combined with well proven needling techniques, the new press felt technology offers an attractive package of benefits:

• Fast and above average water absorption results in immediate paper machine startup.
• Low void volume and excellent compressibility at the press nip give the press felt extremely high nip dewatering attributes.
• Higher drainage performance optimizes the dry content at the press exit, which results in lower energy consumption in the drying section.
• Dimensional stability is improved by the parallel yarns, which are further stabilized during a specially developed manufacturing process.
• With the IMPACT structure, there is absolutely no marking and thus printability is outstanding.
• The high drainage capacity of this design at the nip leads to excellent self cleaning and as a result, the felt remains uncontaminated throughout its entire running life.

Huyck.Wangner has integrated the trendsetting IMPACT technology into its existing press felt portfolio. It is also available with the already well known axxial, huyperm, extender, huyperpunch D and huyperrock technology. Papermakers now have access to a further highperformance technology offering them configuration options and verifiable value added in the area of both production and cost efficiency.