Livermore Study Shows Decontamination Wipe Developed At TTU Outperforms Others
Fibertect™, a nonwoven decontamination wipe developed by researchers at The Institute of
Environmental and Human Health (TIEHH) at Lubbock, Texas-based Texas Tech University (TTU) has been
shown to perform better than 30 other decontamination materials for wiping up toxic chemicals and
chemical warfare agents.
The materials, including some used currently by the US military, were tested using mustard gas and other toxic chemicals as part of a study conducted at Livermore, Calif.-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The results of the study, “Next Generation Non-particulate Dry Nonwoven Pad for Chemical Warfare Agent Decontamination,” have been published in the American Chemical Society’s journal, “Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.”
Fibertect is a needlepunched fabric comprising two absorbent nonwoven layers covering an activated carbon core. The wipe was developed by Dr. Seshadri Ramkumar, supervisor of TTU’s Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory, and a team of scientists with the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. National Program for Countermeasures to Biological and Chemical Threats, funded by the US Department of Defense. The outer layers of the Fibertect wipes that were evaluated in the Livermore study contained polyester and viscose.
“Needlepunch nonwoven technology has been used to develop this flexible, absorbent and adsorbent material that can be used not only as a decontamination wipe, but also as the liner of protective suits, filters and masks,” Ramkumar said. “The material is flexible, doesn’t contain loose particles and is capable of cleaning intricate parts of everything from the human body to the control panel of a fighter jet.”
TTU’s Office of Technology Commercialization has licensed the technology to Hobbs Bonded Fibers, Waco, Texas, and the product is now in production.
December 9, 2008
The materials, including some used currently by the US military, were tested using mustard gas and other toxic chemicals as part of a study conducted at Livermore, Calif.-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The results of the study, “Next Generation Non-particulate Dry Nonwoven Pad for Chemical Warfare Agent Decontamination,” have been published in the American Chemical Society’s journal, “Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.”
Fibertect is a needlepunched fabric comprising two absorbent nonwoven layers covering an activated carbon core. The wipe was developed by Dr. Seshadri Ramkumar, supervisor of TTU’s Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory, and a team of scientists with the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. National Program for Countermeasures to Biological and Chemical Threats, funded by the US Department of Defense. The outer layers of the Fibertect wipes that were evaluated in the Livermore study contained polyester and viscose.
“Needlepunch nonwoven technology has been used to develop this flexible, absorbent and adsorbent material that can be used not only as a decontamination wipe, but also as the liner of protective suits, filters and masks,” Ramkumar said. “The material is flexible, doesn’t contain loose particles and is capable of cleaning intricate parts of everything from the human body to the control panel of a fighter jet.”
TTU’s Office of Technology Commercialization has licensed the technology to Hobbs Bonded Fibers, Waco, Texas, and the product is now in production.
December 9, 2008
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