“How can a clean web benefit my business?” It’s a question we’ve often come across at trade shows and meetings with prospective customers, a revealing fact suggesting that, while there are companies that are aware of web cleaning as a concept, they may not have a full understanding of it as a process.
To put it in more accessible terms, web cleaning plays a vital role in minimising wastage and achieving higher levels of productivity in a number of sectors, including labelling, packaging and converting. However, it is important to capitalise on the strengths of both contact and non-contact web-cleaning in order to achieve these levels of cleanliness and productivity.
Let’s take narrow web presses as an example. These machines used by label converters traditionally adopt tacky roller contact systems to efficiently remove contamination, a method that provides excellent cleaning especially for filmic substrates. Not too dissimilar to the sticky rollers one would use to remove fluff from clothes, these contact cleaning systems use elastomer rollers to remove dry, unbonded contamination from a moving web, which is then transferred onto adhesive rolls where it is trapped. This is a very straightforward cleaning system that also allows operators to see the contamination being collected.
For other substrates such as paper or board, which typically carry higher contamination levels and therefore may require a more aggressive type of cleaning, contact vacuum systems are commonly used. But, on the other hand, non-contact web cleaning provide the best of both worlds, as they can be used with a wider variety of substrates. The upside is that a non-contact system can handle nearly anything and won’t be affected by high contamination levels like tacky roller systems, as well as not having to contend with consumable costs.
Brand owners expect the very highest quality finish to promote their product to the end user and only by employing the appropriate cleaning methods dependant on application results in a spotless web. Here at Meech we make it a priority to advise our clients what is the best web-cleaning solution for their business, so if you want to learn more about our web cleaning products and services, please feel free to get in touch with our team – we’ll be glad to help!