A packaging and cultural paper mill in Southeast Asia called us about a felt problem that kept coming back. After a few days of running, the felts would blind over - drainage dropped, sheet defects climbed, and they were forced into unscheduled stops just to pull the felts and wash them down. Below is our technical consultation with their team.
Why Felts Clog Up
Q: Our felts blind over after a few days - drainage drops, defects climb, and we end up stopping the machine just to wash them. What's actually happening?
A: A running felt keeps trapping filler, fines, resin and mineral deposits in its structure, and once those build up in the fiber gaps, air and water can't pass through the way they should - so drainage falls and sheet defects follow. By the time it forces an unplanned stop, you've already lost production. PR-05 is the first product our company developed in-house; it uses surfactant chelation technology to penetrate the felt and disperse and break down the stubborn soils - mineral scale, titanium precipitates, clay, dyes, aluminum deposits, resin stickies. Run it right and you clean the felt online instead of tearing the machine down every time.
How to Run It
Q: How do we actually use it - is it a complicated job?
A: Two ways, and neither is a big production. For online cleaning while the machine runs, feed it continuously into the low-pressure shower pipes and spray it onto the felt - you wash as you go, no downtime. For offline cleaning when the machine is stopped, dilute it with water to 4.0%–10%, soak 10–20 minutes, then rinse thoroughly with high-pressure water. It's alkaline, so keep to the recommended concentration and don't let neat product sit on equipment for long.
Is It Safe on the Felt
Q: It's alkaline - won't that corrode the felt or damage the fabric?
A: It's a cleaning aid built specifically for paper machine felts and fabrics, so used at the recommended concentration and method it's safe on the felt itself. The alkaline side is real, so the discipline is in concentration and contact time: don't over-strengthen the offline soak, and online is just a continuous spray that passes through. If the fabric is an unusual material, a small compatibility check on a sample is the safest first step.
Mixing With Other Chemicals
Q: We already run biocides and retention aids on the line. Will adding a cleaner cause conflicts?
A: Online cleaning goes through the felt shower, which is a different point from the wet-end system where your biocides and retention aids live, so they generally don't meet. But the cleaner itself is alkaline, and alkaline products can react if they hit acidic or strongly cationic chemistry directly - so keep the dosing points apart, or confirm compatibility on a sample first. If you need a custom blend, our technical team can put it together for you.
