Just like the consumer household wipes market, industrial and institutional wipes (I&I wipes) are in high demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Now more than ever wipes are being used to clean and disinfect surfaces in various facilities and institutions across the globe. In addition to being increasingly used in healthcare facilities to decrease cross contamination and infections, more supermarkets, manufacturing facilities, businesses and recently reopened schools are opting for wipes as a way to kill germs and viruses on hard surfaces.

The ease-of-use, convenience and effectiveness of wipes continue to help boost growth in all categories, including in industrial and institutional settings. Because they can be engineered to incorporate specific qualities, nonwoven-based wipes and wipers can outperform textile wipers and rags. For example, some can absorb more liquid, more quickly than rags, while also leaving less lint behind. Nonwovens also provide consistency in both size and performance, while shop rags can vary in size and can contain contaminants, even after being laundered.

Market research and consulting firm Kline & Company, which published a market study on the nonwovens segment of the industrial and institutional cleaning market last year, reports that among end-use segments, healthcare is a key segment for the growth of wipes—especially disinfectant and sanitizer wipes—and is expected to continue driving sales in the next four to five years. “The growth of wipes in hospitals and nursing homes—anything that’s a healthcare facility where they are trying to limit the healthcare acquired infection rate—are driving growth for wet wipes, and now it’s even more so the case after Covid-19,” says Laura Mahecha, industry manager, Industrial and Institutional Cleaning at Kline & Company.
According to Mahecha, during an average year the overall janitorial chemical industry grows anywhere from 1-3% per year, with wet wipes tending to grow more around 6% per year. She credits the EPA wiper rule, which was published in 2013, as a factor that has catapulted wipes in the industrial and institutional market.

“Previously facilities had to dispose of wipes in a more costly way,” she says. “Once the wiper rule went into effect and hospitals and long-term care facilities could throw cleaning wipes out with all of the other regular trash, we really started to see a big spike in sales for wipes compared to probably 10-15 years ago.”

According to the EPA, the final rule modifies the hazardous waste management regulations for solvent-contaminated wipes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Specifically, this rule revises the definition of solid waste to conditionally exclude solvent-contaminated wipes that are cleaned and reused and revises the definition of hazardous waste to conditionally exclude disposable solvent-contaminated wipes. The purpose of the final rule was to provide a consistent regulatory framework for solvent-contaminated wipes that is appropriate to the level of risk posed by these wipes in a way that maintains protection of human health and the environment, while reducing overall compliance costs for industry, many of which are small businesses.

One area where Kline is starting to see some pushback on wipes is from end users who say wipes aren’t environmentally friendly. “There were a lot of requirements on manufacturers to make wipes biodegradable and to use less plastic in the content—and a lot of this was ramping up in the mid-to-end of 2019, especially in Europe,” she says. “Now it’s less of a priority—users just want to kill germs and keep people healthy and safe, and wipes are a very convenient and cost-effective way to do that.”

Because of Covid-19, Kline expects to see strong growth in the market, especially for wet wipes. “It’s not just in the healthcare industry, it’s really across all types of facilities—they don’t want to use a rag that’s reusable, they want to wipe that one surface and dispose of those germs with the wipe,” Mahecha explains.

In the short term the biggest challenge for wipes makers is the shortage of raw materials. “A lot of those raw materials are being used to make things like masks, gowns and personal protective equipment (PPE) that are used by healthcare and frontline workers, so I think that is putting a damper on growth, and I think growth would be even higher if the manufacturers could acquire the actual nonwoven material and churn the wipes out,” she says.

Up for the Task
The pandemic has certainly raised concerns for hygiene especially on the institutional side, and disposable wipes bring more security regarding cleanliness of wipes used, says Serkan Gogus, CEO of Turkish nonwovens producer Mogul. “This will create more business for disposable wipes,” he adds.

Mogul offers a range of wipes substrates for various industrial and institutional settings. The company’s meltblown wipes mainly target spill control applications, and Duotex abrasive wipes are being treated with a lotion as a wet wipe and used for industrial cleaning. Meanwhile, Mogul’s q-wick is a multipurpose wipe that can be used for industrial or institutional cleaning, while its cross-lap spunlace wipes under the Durell brand is mainly for institutional cleaning. The company’s most recent launch for the industrial and institutional wipes market is Madaline Asterion microfilament fabric, which is a durable and reusable wipe.

According to Enver Kayali, president of Asterion, which is a sister company of Mogul, the line producing the unique and exclusive microfilament technology has been operational for the last two years in Lüleburgaz city near Istanbul, Turkey. The technology serves seven major markets, with the washable cleaning cloth segment being one of them. The Asterion microfilament technology makes the fabric with continuous filament, converting polymers into microfilament cloth in one production process. It is a more cost-effective process compared to microfiber cloth, which requires multiple processes (polymer chips converted to short-cut fiber, then to yarn, then to knitted cloth). Asterion performance cloths are made from microfilaments 100 times thinner than the human hair and five to 10 times thinner than traditional microfibers. The entanglement of these very fine microfilaments, when combined with hydrophilic treatment, create micro-channels, which yield enhanced performance for a wide variety of cleaning applications.

Asterion hopes to challenge the reusable microfiber wipes market, which is traditionally comprised of woven rags, and open up new opportunities for nonwovens. With Asterion, Kayali is looking to gain a share from microfibers imported from the Asia-Pacific region, mainly China.

“The microfilament technology, unlike, conventional knitted, weaved microfibers, are manufactured with continuous filament technology,” he says. “Therefore, the continuous filaments do not need any binders, solvents or PVC based substances in order to fix/bond the filaments together during the dyeing process, and hence, thanks to the patented microfilament technology, the cloths do not need edge stitching, because it has non-fraying edges.”

Currently, Kayali is preparing to promote Asterion cloths to the retail industry in Turkey, and he foresees expansion into the European Union and U.S. in the coming years.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Fibertex Nonwovens dedicated more production capacity to nonwovens for wipes. “This segment is being considered as a priority in today’s situation,” says Michel Vincent-Dospital, CCO, Automotive & Wipes, Fibertex Nonwovens. “The Covid-19 pandemic has highly and durably impacted the industrial & institutional wipes market due to a strong increase in cleaning for people and hospitals and the need of working in a safe environment. For this, nonwovens wipes were needed again and again at a lot of steps of the processes.”

Among the end-use segments Fibertex Nonwovens targets in the institutional and industrial category are factories, food service, hospitals and public places. Its range of spunlace offerings is available in finishes including apertured, embossed and colored. Products are available in everything from rolls to wipes in packaging, in a range of fibers from viscose (biodegradable) to microfibers for high level wiping.

“The outlook of these segments is really booming due to an increasing demand from users to protect themselves, work and live in an always safer environment,” Vincent-Dospital says. “This growth is driven by the increasing non-acceptance nowadays by people of the risks and of the deficient comfort in their living.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has strongly changed the way people live and work, he adds. “This will leave an important and durable change on their way of life.”

In industrial and institutional cleaning, Sandler nonwovens for floor cloths, dish cloths, all-purpose cloths and substrates for disinfection wipes are a solution for various applications: for cleaning glass or metal, for disposable or reusable products, in wet or dry applications. “Even impregnated with surface active agents, oil, or wax, they become accomplished all-rounders,” says Carolin Weber, sales director Hygiene Products. “A variety of surface structures optimizes dirt-holding capacity and at the same time offers opportunities for product differentiation.”

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic the demand for products for sanitizing and disinfection has risen exponentially and it is likely to continue to be high, Weber says. “This is also the case for disinfection wipes. A lot of people have gotten into the habit of carrying a package of disinfectant wipes with them, as they are easily used and readily at hand in any situation.”

At its headquarters in Schwarzenbach/Saale, Germany, as well as at its U.S. site in Perry, GA, Sandler manufactures nonwoven substrates for hygiene products and disinfection wipes. As a supplier of these base materials, Sandler Nonwoven Corporation is registered by the State of Georgia as an essential business operation supporting the fight against the pandemic, she says. In Germany, Sandler AG was rated as a systemically important company by Bavarian authorities in late March. “In cooperation with customers around the globe Sandler is thereby contributing to ensuring the constant availability of these products,” Weber says.

From Sandler’s point of view, one advantage of nonwovens-based wipes is convenience: They can be used anywhere—at home, at work, or on the go—and they are available for every conceivable use, from automotive interior polishing, to floor cleaning for different types of flooring, to personal care applications and even screen cleaning. “These substrates can be imbued with different lotions, cleaning or disinfecting agents, which opens up a multitude of possible applications and makes them an all-in-one cleaning solution, that is readily available. Also, the packaging makes them ideal for easy, fast use, no matter where you are,” Weber says. “With regard to product characteristics, nonwoven substrates allow for the combination of different properties in one product. Fine and coarser layers can be combined; structured surfaces offer both visual differentiation and increased functionality.”
For Freudenberg Performance Materials, both disposable and reusable applications in the I&I market remain important growing market opportunities.

Freudenberg supplies the market with wipes and wipe substrates based on Evolon technology, a material made from microfilaments that are 100 times thinner than a human hair. “Wipes made of Evolon provide outstanding, lint-free, cleaning performance because the microfilaments are extremely fine and dense,” says Jean-Francois Kerhault, business segment manager Evolon at Freudenberg Performance Materials.

Heavy-weight Evolon wipes can withstand hundreds of wash cycles. The portfolio also includes semi-disposable solutions and substrates dedicated to fully disposable purposes with the same high efficiency.

Evolon industrial wipe substrates are available in a very wide range of weights, with the virtually endless possibilities of unique-looking three-dimensional textures, designs, color-coding and prints. “Versatile color-coding ability is an additional important asset of Evolon technology especially to address the market where cross-contamination between cleaned areas must be avoided,” says Kerhault. “In the past months, the Evolon product portfolio has proved to match ideally the customers’ needs. Evolon engineers are currently focused on customer satisfaction in respect with the high demand for hygienic cleaning solutions.”

Evolon wipes are suitable for general industrial cleaning and specialty markets, including automotive, aerospace, food service, healthcare, and printing industry. In highly technical niche markets, Evolon can fulfill very high cleaning performance requirements. “Performance but also sustainability remain important drivers in our markets,” he adds.

According to Kerhault, Freudenberg’s automotive and traditional industrial wipes markets have seen a temporary decline due to the economic slowdown during Covid-19. Also, wide-spread home office practices have lowered the need for contract cleaning business in unoccupied offices and various places have been left empty. “This decrease has been fully balanced by the soaring demand for disinfection solutions in healthcare applications,” he continues.

The company has been able to react quickly and efficiently to deliver the volumes of substrates needed by the market because Evolon existing product range is perfectly suitable to Covid-related requirements, he adds.

“On the one hand, we have provided substrates for disposable impregnated disinfection wipes and pre-cut wipe rolls with our 30-60gsm products,” Kerhault says. “These products provide an outstanding solution for disinfection purpose because they combine the lint-free cleaning power of microfilaments with the anti-bacterial effect of a disinfecting solution.”
On the other hand, Freudenberg has also seen a growing demand of reusable wipes for healthcare. “Evolon wipes are washable hundreds of times at 95°C, and can be sterilized in all traditional manners (steam/ETO/Gamma rays).”

The most recent news from Berry Global in the I&I wipes market is the commercialization of its third Spinlace line, which started up on schedule in late 2019, just in time to support the surge in demand driven by Covid-19. A $50 million investment, the asset is running at full production rates, providing an incremental 17,000 metric tons of annual capacity to the marketplace. The Spinlace asset is focused on wipes serving the healthcare, hygiene, household cleaning, foodservice and industrial markets.

The line, located in Mooresville, NC, is dedicated to wipe production with a sizeable amount of this volume going toward institutional wiping solutions supporting a wide variety of businesses like transportation (airlines/ride-sharing), hospitality (hotels/conventions/resorts), hospitals, gyms and schools, according to Mark Siebert, EVP & general manager for Healthcare & Specialties, North America at Berry Global.

“This proprietary technology, a hydroentanglement process, provides a softer, cloth-like feel, with superior absorption and durability,” he says. “Additionally, our Apex technology allows unique imaging to be added to the substrate, which not only increases the aesthetics of a wipe, but also provides a unique texture that can be used for scrubbing purposes. The imaging can be customized to support branding as well.”

According to Siebert, many of Berry’s key industrial market’s demand including general industrial, foodservice and building care were down during the March peak of the pandemic due to the closure of restaurants, manufacturing facilities, office buildings, stadiums, etc. “As the country has begun to reopen, we have seen these businesses returning to normal/higher levels of demand,” he adds.

Further, transportation, lodging, gyms and foodservice industries have modified their protocols to increase their frequency of cleaning and sanitizing to guarantee a safe environment for their customers, he says. “Many cleaning routines adopted by end users during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic will be maintained.”

Berry responded rapidly to these challenges adjusting to a higher level of demand throughout the supply chain, from raw material suppliers to its converters and distributors. “We have worked closely with our customers to meet their increased demand and continue to deliver high quality product performance and service in these unprecedented times,” Siebert says.
Because the pandemic has brought more attention on proper cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting protocols, Berry has seen an increase in the single use/limited use wipers as well as its sanitizer compatible wipes.

Berry’s line of sanitizer compatible wipes ensures the full potency of the sanitizing solution reaches a surface. These towels feature proprietary nonwoven technologies that will not consume the active sanitizing ingredients, but rather allow the sanitizer to release from the towel onto surfaces. “This performance benefit has accelerated the transition from organic to synthetic towels,” Siebert concludes.