•  On Mar, 26, 2021
•  admin
•   PVA Sponge Roller, Surface Cleaning

10 years ago, we are using a non-woven wiper in a cleanroom, but the situation changed recently. From our observation, we are seeing the many cleanrooms slowly convert to PVA foam wipers instead of non-woven wipers.

In our last article, we have listed the reason why PVA foam wiper is more common in the cleanroom. In this article, we would like to compare these two materials and we will find out why the PVA is over take non-woven wiper.

PVA Foam Wiper is more popular to use in cleanroom areas especially deal with wet surface contamination removal.

The Cleanroom Nonwoven Wiper

There are many cleanroom wipers available in the market, mostly claimed of polyester or microfiber material. However, for those who really concern about the wiper quality, we always benchmark to Texwipe wiper.

If you happen to go through the Texwipe product catalog, you will see a long product list but let us focus on non-woven wipers for now. The Texwipe nonwoven wiper is classified under the Technicloth category.

What do we learn from Taxwipe Technicloth Non-Woven Wiper?

Material.
This is wiper is a compound fabric from 45% polyester and 55% of cellulose. The bonding between these 2 materials via the chemical and mechanical heating process.

Application.
The non-woven wiper is suitable for wiping and cleaning surfaces, equipment and parts. On the other hand, also able to work by removing lubricants, adhesives, residues, and other solutions including disinfectants.

Manufacture Environment.
The Texwipe nonwoven wiper is manufactured in the cleanroom condition.

The PVA Foam Wiper

The PVA foam wiper originates from PVA sponge material. It only fabricates under the sheet form size to resemble the nonwoven fabric used in the cleanroom.

As aware, the PVA sponge is having excellent water absorption and also provides a large friction force for surface contaminant removal. The sheet wiper does remain the same nature as the sponge does.

Material
It makes from PVA material with similar nature to the PVA sponge roller. No filament or cellulose is involved during the foam wiper’s manufacturing process. This implies no lint generates during the application process and makes it very suitable for a cleanroom working environment.

Application.
Work well with most of the liquid and detergent. Very suitable uses for removing the surface contaminant. However, the PVA foam is not suitable to work with IPA or ethanol.

Manufacture Environment.
Our PVA foam wiper is manufactured in the cleanroom environment and will go through the final cleaning process to ensure fulfill the cleanliness spec.

Best Practice – Environment Cleaning

In many manufacturing environments, field engineers always struggle for maintaining a clean and neat working environment. Perhaps, the environmental cleanliness is even stringent under the semiconductor sector.

Let us summarize some of the best practices for maintaining a cleaner working environment.

1. Cleanliness protocol training for all staff. Sufficient training will ensure staff and workers are fully aware of the cleanliness requirements.
2. Tools maintenance and storage.
3. Enforce periodic maintenance.
4. Avoid contaminant in the working environment.
5. Less movement for people and goods. To minimize particles generated during the movement process.
6. The material used in the process. Use the appropriate material in the working environment. For instance, the poor quality non-woven fabric shall be minimized.

Either the cleanroom non-woven wiper or PVA foam wiper, both products have their ability and characteristic for the cleaning process.

In general, the PVA foam wiper has a better position if the cleaning is carrying out under wet conditions. Whereby, the cleanroom non-woven wiper is suitable for wiping off oily contaminant, such as tool cleaning. After that, the fabric is discarded.

DST does supply quality PVA foam wiper products mainly used in cleanroom and surface cleaning. Please contact DST for further understanding about foam wipers.