Substrate Formation

The Substrate Formation Production Stage covers the processing from the raw material content of the Synthetic Leather substrate into the physical substrate layer. The following process options are available:

• Non-woven, needle punching, for synthetic leather is the default process selection and should be used unless applying another applicable substrate formation method. In this default process, fibers are mechanically oriented and then bonded together by punching with thousands of barbed felting needles that are repeatedly passed in and out of the fiber web. When the substrate formation method does not match any of the available process options, this default process should still be used to avoid underrepresenting material impacts.
• Non-woven, water jet, for synthetic leather should be selected when using a non-woven substrate that is formed using hydroentanglement. In this process, the fibers are bonded together by using high-pressure water jets that penetrate and bounce back into the fiber structure, causing the fibers to entangle.