Wash process of mats
Current Problem
Every laundry washes there mats but we see huge differences in what this does to mats. Specifically were are now looking at colorfastness of printed logomats but it can also have a small influence on solution dyed mats and the famous ripple problem.
Where some laundries complain that fastness is not good, fading after a few years others have no problems. As the biggest difference is the wash process we are further analysing this.
If you are a laundry please supply us the following information.
Ph of fresh water you are using.
Ph of the main wash water and temperature you are washing at.
When you are using recycled water, Ph value of the recycled water (before use in the main wash)
Source of the recycled water. For example rinse water of mats, rinse water of working garments, rinse water of hospital water, mixed source.
When using for example hospital rinse water has chloride bleach or Oxygene bleach been used in the main wash.
Solution
We have a solution in mind that can help to improve the lifetime of colours. At the same time ripples in mats have multiple causes and different washing and accelerate or decelerate this problem, it can’t solve it as the real cause is currently build into all mats. Currently the major mat manufacturers are using a 100% polyester primary backing, which is not ideal also for other reasons. We now also think that the wash process influences this material and can accelerate the ripple problem.
Above information would help us to analyze the color fastness problem and influence on ripples. When our suspicions are right there could be a easy solution to fix this. Fix mean colours of printed mats could last some longer and it might take a bit (not much) longer for mats to start rippling.
Interested in this Project ?
Want to know more about this test method and our solutions to increase the lifetime of current mats.