The present invention relates to absorbent cores for absorbent articles,
which are intended to receive and retain bodily discharges such as urine.
Such articles are disposable hygiene articles like baby diapers, training
pants, adult incontinence articles, feminine care articles and the like.
The improvement essentially is based on the recognition that replacing
most or all of the cushioning fibrous absorbent material in an absorbent
core by a liquid storage material capable of retaining liquid while
maintaining or improving acquisition behavior is desirable as the
reduction in cushioning is more than compensated by the gain in comfort.
The comfort however can only be achieved if the more fundamental
requirements of a diaper in respect to liquid handling are satisfied or
improved. Especially if this liquid handling performance is improved
beyond the performance of conventional absorbent structures in order to
allow creation of thinner and drier absorbent articles, the users of such
articles would experience them as providing a more than expected comfort
improvement relative to the thinness gain. To provide such absorbent
cores and articles made therewith only became possible with the
development of new highly absorbent gel materials capable of acquiring,
conducting, and storing liquids in here-to-fore unexpected perfection at
super absorbent polymer concentrations, which are unknown today. The
second aspect allowing this breakthrough development is the ability to
maintain the comfort and performance of such high super absorbent polymer
concentration articles during the full usage cycle of the article, from
dry to fully loaded, especially by improving the ability of the cores to
withstand the forces experienced by such articles during use. This
ability to remain intact is also often referred to as wet integrity of
the core and its improvement is an important objective of the present
invention.