get maximum advantage from the superior garment life now achievable.


Water charges


EXPERT ELIMINATION: Firefighters’ exposure to toxic materials calls for expert professional decontamination


type of potential contaminant and market leaders are responding appropriately. Not knowing which contaminant might be encountered by the wearer is obviously an obstacle, to which chemical suppliers to the laundering sector are responding with broad range emulsifiers, strong suspending agents and powerful surfactants. The wearer might be exposed to mercury in both liquid and vapour form, asbestos and glass fibres, dioxins, nitriles and cyanides and any of thousands of other products of high temperature combustion in industrial, commercial and domestic blazes. There are no quick or easy solutions, and this work is ongoing. LTC Worldwide is involved in work on the decontamination process itself and it is hoped that the development of the ‘process power’ concept which has proved so successful with allergen decontamination might have a place here. LTC is also working on simple means of effluent pre-treatment to ensure safe discharge to sewer.


High-vis workwear


Rental launderers are adept at removing staining from blood sweat and tears, and from food and drink spillages at medium temperatures and medium alkalinity. Effective removal of oily, greasy grime has been more problematic, with early processes relying on high temperatures and high alkalinity. Modern processing uses both powerful emulsifiers and high alkalinity. None of this works very well for high- vis workwear, which can feature tiny aluminium discs embedded in the surface structure. Aluminium reacts with alkali, which progressively dissolves it to form a white aluminate and hydrogen vapour. This destroys the high-vis property making the garment effectively useless. Chemicals suppliers have addressed this with targeted


emulsifiers and activators which work well at low temperatures. Most importantly, the best processes work with neutral pH so that they are neither acid nor alkaline, do not damage the aluminium and maintain the garments’ high-vis properties. The ‘dirt’ in black oil or grease is usually tiny carbon or metal particles, which must be removed along with the grease in the wash. Failure to do this means that the particles re-deposit onto the clean textile surface and are held there, either by strong electro-chemical forces or by entrapment within the yarn structure. This means ensuring that the special chemical mix for high-vis has sufficient power and that the correct dosage is maintained. This may well be more expensive than that for general classifications, but it should be worth the extra, which you may have to explain in any price negotiations with the customer. You may need to have separate processes for normal soil and heavy soil to


The high-volume end of the laundry and rental market has benefited from the latest designs in tunnel washer technology and is now achieving water consumption figures as low as 2 litres/kg of dry work, with around 4.5 litre/kg the norm across the sector. In stark contrast, the standard 50kg washer extractors used in small laundries and on-premises laundries still offer mostly fixed dips which will work anywhere in the country, regardless of water quality. This is fine if you are drawing water from the mains or sub- strata in, for example, the Southeast of England, with water contaminated with alkali from the underlying limestone. If your water is of good quality for laundering, with low levels of contaminants, you are wasting water with every wash, because your rinse dips could almost certainly be significantly reduced. It is probably not economic to improve the design of the dip controls on every 50kg machine, but it could be a welcome step forward if the setpoint of the rinse dip could be adjusted by the machine installer according to the local water quality. This should not increase the base cost of the machine significantly, but the benefit to the purchaser over the 10-year life of the machine would be very considerable. It would also provide a useful selling point in a very crowded and competitive market. For operators of washer extractors with programmable dip levels it now makes sound


NORMAL LIFESPAN: It is now possible to get normal life cycle from hi-vis garments involving multiple washing and re-use


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