Better fabric quality, faster throughput and significant energy savings are the triple benefits from using Roberto rolls in knitgoods finishing. Calculations based on industrial installations in the Brazilian textile industry have proved that a typical knitted fabric wet processing plant can apply the Roberto’s unique liquid expression properties to leave 25% less water in the material at the stenter.
This energy cost saving potential is achieved while also creating a softer handle in the fabric, according to a leading finishing plant in Brazil.
Richard Hough is convinced that there is great scope for notable improvements in product quality, productivity and profitability in wet-on-wet knitgoods padder lines, where chemical softeners are applied, and is able to provide detailed technical and economic guidance to assist companies in incorporating the Roberto into these processes.
Typically, the Roberto is used in wet on wet knitted fabric applications, in which the first bath contains only water, to immerse the fabric and then squeeze evenly, so that finishing chemicals in the next bath are applied as efficiently and uniformly as possible across the entire width of the material.
In this sequence, changing the first mangle to a Roberto roll means that the second mangle can exert increased pressure, to squeeze more water out retain the same chemical penetration into the fabric.
Feedback from a leading Brazilian customer also underlines the quality advantage arising from using a Roberto roll at the first squeeze. The customer reports that its products are now being produced with a softer feel, which it attributes to the more delicate squeezing effect of the Roberto compared to rubber rolls. The effect is said to create a much better finish in the fibres and the knit fabric construction. Hough adds that still further benefits would result from using two Roberto rolls at the first squeeze, which is calculated to give about 5% additional expression, as well as an even softer feel to the fabric.
