Low molecular weight and low modulus polypropylene (LMPP) was successfully synthesized via catalytic polymerization of propylene using a new type of doubly-bridged metallocene. Novel elastic nonwovens which were fabricated from LMPP and highly-isotactic polypropylene (IPP) were investigated with regard to various forms such as single layer, multilayer and bi-component types. The elastic recovery of the designed nonwovens increased with a decrease in the IPP content, however it involved a great deal of difficulty to solve the processing problems due to the LMPP adhesion to embossing rolls. The bi-component and multilayer nonwovens whose each surface layer was enhanced by coating with a small amount of IPP demonstrated a good balance between elastic performances and process runnability.
