Abstract: The invention relates to absorbent products (1) like baby diapers, adult incontinence products and particularly to sanitary napkins or pantyliners. These absorbent products all have absorbent cores (4) which according to the present invention comprise absorbent gelling materials (5) in granular form or other particles. A problem associated with such cores is that these particles can migrate out of the article along the paths of liquid entry into the product. Therefore, a shield (8) positively separating the paths of liquid transport into the product from the particles is provided for absorbent structures according to the invention.

Abstract: A process to make a profiled disposable absorbent product is disclosed. The disposable absorbent product has a first sheet, a second sheet and a fibrous core. The core is disposed between the first and second sheets and both sheets are joined to each other along a continuous or discontinuous line. The process comprises the steps of joining the first sheet to the second sheet along a line following at least part of the periphery of the core with a distance to the core of 3 mm to 8 mm; and calendering the core between the sheets in a calender to approximately uniform density, the calendering being such that the core expands along its periphery and thereby reduces the distance of between the edge of the core and the line joining the first sheet to the second sheet by 1 mm or more. The process provides absorbent articles with very small distances between the core and the line of joining the topsheet and backsheet of the absorbent article.

Abstract: In a process of making an absorbent article such as a sanitary napkin or a disposable diaper, hydrophilic fibers and crimped or coiled synthetic fibers are supplied in a single fiberboard to a defiberising means such as a hammermill. The process results in a homogenous and resilient blended absorbent core that can be produced using a single defiberising unit. The crimped or coiled fibers pass through the defiberising means without their two or three-dimensional structure being adversely affected at a relatively low defiberisation energy.