Short answer: spunbond for strength, cost and volume; meltblown for filtration, barrier and very fine fibres; spunlace for softness, absorbency and no binder residue. These processes are not substitutes — they divide the work. Huayue runs spunbond lines in Yangzhou (7 PP, 4 PET), so a good half of this guide covers when you should NOT buy our fabric. Buying the wrong material costs far more than buying an expensive one, and that is the first thing we tell customers.
1. What Actually Differs Between the Three
The difference comes down to two steps: how the filament is formed, and how the web is bonded. Spunbond melts polymer and extrudes continuous filaments, lays a web and bonds it by hot calendering — continuous filaments give high strength at low cost, with fibre diameters in the tens of microns. Meltblown extrudes the melt and immediately attenuates it with high-velocity hot air into microfibres (roughly 1-5 microns), bonding by self-adhesion and residual heat — very fine fibres and very small pores make it excellent at filtration and barrier, but weak. Spunlace cards staple fibres (viscose, polyester, wood pulp) into a web and entangles them with high-pressure water jets, with no binder at all — the hand-feel is closest to textile, absorbent and lint-free, at the cost of water and capital intensity.
Fibre fineness
Spunbond coarsest (tens of microns), meltblown finest (1-5 µm), spunlace in between (staple fibres).
Strength
Spunbond > spunlace > meltblown. Meltblown alone is fragile and usually sandwiched as SMS.
Hand-feel & absorbency
Spunlace softest and most absorbent (no binder); spunbond soft but hydrophobic; meltblown firmer.
Relative cost
Spunbond lowest, spunlace mid, meltblown usually highest (energy-hungry, low throughput).
2. Choose Spunbond: Load-Bearing, Cheap, High Volume
Spunbond is the highest-volume nonwoven process in the world because nothing competes with it on "adequate strength at the lowest unit cost". Typical uses: shopping and gift bags, furniture and mattress lining, medical disposables, agricultural weed fabric and frost covers, geotextiles and packaging. Huayue runs PP 15-200 gsm and PET 9-240 gsm up to 3.2 m wide — if your spec lands in those bands, we spin the fabric and convert the finished goods under one QC chain. See the PP spunbond roll and PET polyester roll pages, and the spunbond buyer guide for selection.
3. Choose Meltblown: When Filtration and Barrier Are the Job
Plainly: we do not run meltblown, and if filtration or barrier is the core of your product you should be talking to a meltblown or SMS composite specialist. Meltblown's microfibres and tiny pores deliver barrier performance — the filtration layer of masks, liquid filtration, oil absorbents, acoustic and thermal insulation. It is weak on its own, so industry almost always uses it as SMS (spunbond-meltblown-spunbond): the outer spunbond layers carry the load, the meltblown core does the filtering. If what you are buying is filtration efficiency rather than tensile strength, the numbers to request are efficiency and pressure-drop data, not GSM and tensile.
4. Choose Spunlace: When Softness and Absorbency Are the Job
Same honesty: we do not run spunlace either. Its advantage is the absence of binder — entanglement by water jets alone — so the hand-feel is closest to a traditional textile, absorbent, lint-free, and it can be made very light. Typical uses: wet wipes and baby wipes, medical dressings and drapes, cosmetic pads, precision wipes and synthetic-leather substrates. It is a staple-fibre process (viscose, polyester, wood pulp), so the raw-material structure is fundamentally different from spunbond — which is why spunbond plants generally do not run it: the lines are not interchangeable. If your product touches skin, must absorb, or needs to feel like cloth, go to a spunlace mill rather than making do with spunbond.
5. Composites, and How to State Your Requirement
In practice many products are composites: SMS (spunbond-meltblown-spunbond) balances strength and filtration, SMMS adds another layer, and spunbond laminated to film gives waterproof-breathable material. When talking to a supplier, three things beat a spreadsheet of parameters. One: what is the core function the product must deliver (carry load? filter? absorb? block?). Two: what does failure look like (tears? strikes through? sheds lint? irritates skin?). Three: where are the cost and volume boundaries. With those three, a supplier can identify the process; give only a GSM and a width and nobody can tell which process fits. The six specs you still need to quote are in the spunbond buyer guide.
Q1: Can spunbond be used for filtration?
It works as a coarse pre-filter or support layer, but it cannot match meltblown fine filtration. For real efficiency, specify meltblown or an SMS composite.
Q2: Which is softer, spunlace or spunbond?
Spunlace, by a wide margin, and it absorbs. With no binder and entanglement by water jets, the hand-feel is close to textile. Anything touching skin or needing absorbency should be spunlace.
Q3: How do the three compare on price?
Typically spunbond lowest, spunlace mid, meltblown highest per kilo — meltblown is energy-intensive with low throughput per line. Real quotes still depend on GSM, polymer and order size.
Q4: What does SMS mean?
SMS = spunbond-meltblown-spunbond, a three-layer composite: the outer spunbond layers give strength and abrasion resistance, the meltblown core filters. The most common structure in medical protection and filtration.
