A new dispersible moist wipe from wetlaid/spunlace nonwoven: Development and characterization

Abstract

Wood pulp/Danufil nonwovens have been prepared by wetlaid/spunlace method as a potential and new dispersible moist wipes. To verify the potential applications of the wetlaid/spunlace nonwovens, this study investigated the wet strength, softness/smoothness, and dispersibility of wetlaid/spunlace nonwovens with different Danufil contents and length-to-diameter ratios. Meanwhile, these properties were compared with three other types of commonly-used dispersible moist wipes. The results show that an increase in Danufil content or length-to-diameter ratio results in increasing wet strength and decreasing dispersibility of wetlaid/spunlace nonwovens. However, an increase in pulp content or Danufil length-to-diameter ratio will increase real softness and weaken felt smoothness of materials. In addition, the average machine and cross directions wet strength are 9.5 N/50 mm and 6.3 N/50 mm, respectively. The real softness and corresponding felt smoothness of wetlaid/spunlace nonwovens range from 10.8 to 16.3 and from 37.1 to 22.0, respectively. The average required dispersion time of wetlaid/spunlace nonwovens are controlled within 21 min. Overall, the wood pulp/Danufil wetlaid/spunlace nonwovens have the similar wet strength but excellent softness/smoothness and dispersibility when compared with the currently used dispersible products, and possess high feasibility and potential for dispersible moist wipes industry.

Reduced dispersibility of flushable wet wipes after wet storage

“…Toilet paper as an example is a material which solely consists of cellulosic pulp and disintegrates well after disposal 10 . Wet wipes produced as a blend of viscose fibres and wood pulp show sufficient strength for proper usage of the wipe 11 . They consist only of cellulosic material 11 and are therefore biodegradable 12 .…”

Advancement in flushable wipes: Modern technologies and characterization

“…Zhang et al [44] stated that as the content and the length-to-diameter ratio of Danufil Õ fiber in the wood pulp/Danufil Õ wetlaid nonwovens increased, the tearing and tensile strengths improved, and the dispersion performance and the bending rigidity reduced. In addition, the mean machine and cross direction wet strengths were 9.5 N/50 mm and 6.3 N/50 mm for the wood pulp/ Danufil Õ wetlaid/spunlace nonwovens, respectively [45].…”

Fabrication of Ag Np-coated wetlace nonwoven fabric based on amino-terminated hyperbranched polymer

“…The prepared Ag NPs solution was diluted with deionized water to keep the Ag content range from 50 to 200mg/L. To keep the gram weight of wetlace fabric around 60g/m 2 and the strength of the wetlace fabric around 10N, 7g wood pulp and viscose fibers (70/30 in weight) were immersed in Ag NPs solutions for 30min at a water tank which contained a 0.1m 2 net curtain with the bath ratio of 1:50 [1,2].…”

“…The wetlace nonwoven fabric was formed by wet-laid and spunlace reinforcement process [1,2]. Compared with traditional fabrics, wetlace nonwoven fabric exhibits high generation speed and possess sufficient softness, flexibility and conformability, making it widely applied in moist wipes and biomedical field [3][4][5][6].…”