Engineering and Industrial facilities around the world use low lint and Non Woven Wipes for critical wiping tasks everyday. While the use of used rags has been on the decline in these areas, the use of low lint and non woven wipes has increased dramatically because of the way they are made, their consistency, quality and cost. This article will hopefully answer some of the most asked questions regarding these wipes and comparing them to used rags.

a) What are Low Lint and Non-Woven wipes?

Low lint and Non-woven wipes are a synthetic cloth wipe made from a combination of woodpulp, polyester, viscose or cellulose fibres that have good wet and dry strength, excellent absorbency and low lint characteristics. All this coupled with excellent chemical compatibility, make the Nonwoven Cleanroom Wipes ideal for use with oils, solvents, alcohols and practically any other fluid.

b) How are they made?

Non Woven wipes are made by a process called hydroentangling. This is basically shooting thousands of high-pressure (up to 2000psi), needle-like jets of water at a random group of blended fibres. The jets entangle the fibres into a fabric, which is then dried and wound into a giant mother fabric roll. Wipes are then made into smaller wiper rolls are cut into flatlay or quarterfold wipes and put in a box. Fibres may be entangled to form a strong yet soft sheet structure with either a repeating pattern (called apertured or creped) or no pattern.

c) How do wipes differ from used rags?

Rags have been the engineers friend for many a year. But with technology moving on and parts and components needing to be wiped and cleaned in a more delicate and professional way, critical low lint non-woven wipers were needed and have now become industry standard. The trouble with a bale of rags is it was found to have no consistency between each rag. The engineer would search through a bale of rags looking for a 'good one' as the rags were usually made from cut up bits of overalls, sweatshirt and t-shirt etc (with a few zips and metal press studs sometimes thrown in for good measure). With low lint non-woven wipes being made from a giant mother roll then each wipe cut by laser or machine, the quality is guaranteed from the first wipe to the last.

More information on all Industrial Wipes can be found at cleanwetwipes.