Is pH Level Secretly Damaging Your Linen?

When laundry plants wash hotel linen, linen that has reached the later stage of use often breaks easily when torn. Why?

Hotel linen has a certain service life. As a result, the hotel should not only wash and manage the cotton normally but also protect the linen to prolong its service life. Especially in laundry plants with the linen rental business, one more month of linen service life can save money for the laundry plants. By controlling the linen’s pH, the linen’s service life can be prolonged.

Problems Caused by Long-term High pH

The long-term high pH will lead to damage to the linen.

Pure cotton: small holes, cracked edges and corners, thinner and more prone to breakage, cloudy colors, softness decreases

Cotton blended linen: cloudy colors, the cotton part falls off, loses elasticity, has cracked and frayed corners, and the folded edges fall off.

Impact on Linen

❑ The residual effect of alkaline detergent on linen

Though alkaline detergents are safe for pure cotton or cotton-blended linen and do not hurt the linen’s fibers. However, the alkaline residue in fibers will make the linen grey and stiff in the long term after drying and ironing.

 

❑ Whiteness of the linen

Colored metals such as iron usually exist in the form of ions or ionic compounds. If water containing iron ions is heated and washed with alkaline detergents or rinsed with oxidants, due to the high PH value, the alkaline substances react with iron ions, it will leave reddish-brown spots on the linen, which are very hard to remove and affect the overall whiteness of the linen.

❑ Softness of the linen

The softener is generally used in the use of cationic surfactant, which reacts with the basic material to lose its surface activity. If the pH of the linen is too high, it will directly do harm to the user’s skin and have an impact on the washing quality, the comfort of use, and the service life of linen. As a result, the linen’s pH controlling should be given high attention.

The Importance of Controlling pH

Controlling the linen’s pH is accomplished by adding neutralizing acid in the last stage of the normal washing process. Adding a correct amount of neutralizing acid can adjust the pH value to let it be between 5.5 and 6.5, so that it can prevent metal ions in water (calcium and magnesium) from reacting with alkali to form insoluble substances that deposit on the linen. Also, it dissolves some metal ions in water. This avoids the linen turning gray and dark, having a rough hand feel, lacking luster, and fiber caking caused by alkali residue. It is helpful to provide a relatively good environment for the softener to be used, thereby enhancing the softness of the towel.