Flushable wipe is a whole new concept yet to hit the Indian market.
With the importance of hygiene-related products under focus post-Covid, the usage of wipes will be increasing.
However, there has been a big risk of chocking of the sewage system during the disposal.
Flushable wipes manufacturing technology jointly developed by Truetzschler Nonwovens and Voith is the right solution for this. A.T.E. can offer this jointly developed innovative technology to the Indian customers.
Dry or wet wipes are widely used today in a number of hygiene-related applications – both domestic and personal.
As wipes are usually made from nonwovens, nonwoven manufacturing processes have taken on a renewed importance in the textile industry with many textile manufacturers looking for end-to-end solutions in all aspects of wipe manufacturing.
However, dry or wet wipes can be difficult to dispose as they can clog sewage systems due to their failure to disintegrate in water.
Land-filling of used wipes is just not a sustainable option. To counter this problem, Voith Group (Division: Paper) and Truetzschler Nonwovens joined hands to develop flushable wipes.
These wipes can simply be flushed down the toilet without worry because they disintegrate into individual fibres in agitated water.
The wet-laid process for nonwovens is similar to the making of paper.
The first step involves suspension of fibres and water to form a slurry, so that single fibres of different types are evenly distributed in the water.
The web is formed when the slurry is passed over a wire belt. When the water is sucked off through the belt, a homogeneous fibre mat is formed.
The spunlacing process performed by the AquaJet system on this fibre mat further produces nonwovens that feel like textiles.
Unlike the carding process where longer fibres are required, wet laying can utilisefibres as short as 2 mm up to 15 mm to form the web. In principle, every fibre that is dispersed in water can be wet-laid.
Hence, fibres of low cost like wood pulp i.e., cellulose fibres, man-made and mineral fibres, etc., can be used.
The WLS (wet-laying/spunlacing) process does not require any binders as hydro-entangling the single fibres gives the nonwoven adequate strength.
Wipes produced through wet-in-wet (i.e. a combination of wetlaid and AquaJet processes) are extremely versatile.
