Industrial Washing Machine and Thermal Disinfection
A professional washing machine, usually a washer-extractor, that washes, rinses and spins batches of laundry with controlled temperature and time programmes.
The most common industrial washing machine in laundries, hotels, care homes and hospitals is the washer-extractor: a drum that washes in batches and, at the end of the programme, spins at high speed to extract the water before drying or ironing in a flatwork ironer. Unlike domestic machines, they work with loads of many kilos, allow each phase to be programmed (prewash, wash, rinses, finishing) and receive liquid products through automatic dosing pumps. For large volumes of similar laundry, continuous batch washers (washing tunnels) are used.
Thermal disinfection consists of keeping the bath at a given temperature for a sufficient time during the wash phase. As not all fabrics tolerate high temperatures, lower-temperature processes are also used that combine time, mechanical action and chemical products. In laundries that process linen with hygiene requirements, the UNE-EN 14065 standard describes a biocontamination control system (RABC) for the processed textiles.
Instaquim products for machine laundry washing, according to their technical data sheet:
- Solmatic (pH 1 %: 12.5; 2-10 g/kg of dry laundry; 60-80 ºC): alkaline product for use with Tensomatic in systems with automatic dosing.
- Tensomatic + (pH 9.5; 1-6 g/kg of dry laundry): controlled-foam detergent for white or coloured laundry, on its own or with Solmatic.
- Suaumatic (pH 1.5; 5-10 g/kg of dry laundry): neutralising softener and anti-chlorine reducing agent for the final rinse.