Innovations for environmentally responsible washing and bleaching from Kreussler Textile Care at Texcare 2024

The Kreussler team at the stand

At Texcare 2024 in Frankfurt am Main, the Kreussler Textile Care stand (D42, Hall 8.0) presented a wide range of solutions for environmentally friendly textile care. “Our bleaching power booster, OTTALIN OptiBleach, attracted notable attention,” reported Christoph Richter, Managing Director and Head of the Textile Care division at Kreussler. “As an ideal alternative to chlorine bleach, it significantly extends the lifespan of textiles compared with more aggressive chlorine bleaching processes, which accordingly helps reduce the carbon footprint and results in replacement costs arising much less frequently than when using chlorine.” The resulting significant reduction in waste volume leads to a lower environmental impact. OTTALIN OptiBleach enables excellent bleaching results within a single wash cycle, including at temperatures as low as 50°C. It removes heavy soiling quickly and gently, minimising the need for re-washing and helping to conserve time, water, energy and washing chemicals.

Using two before-and-after comparison displays – a chef’s jacket marked with various food stains and two mildew-stained pillowcases – visitors were able to see that even very persistent stains can be bleached back to a bright white. As OTTALIN OptiBleach is simply incorporated into standard oxygen-based bleaching agents, there is no extra step before rinsing and antichlorination is not needed. This also avoids the risks linked to incorrect dosing of active oxygen when completing a chlorine bleaching process. Unlike chlorine bleaching, there is no risk of forming environmentally harmful adsorbable organic halogen compounds (AOX), and no limit values require monitoring.

“OptiCare 50° GREEN, our modular system for industrial laundry, also attracted considerable interest,” said Thomas Zeck, Commercial Director of Kreussler Textile Care. “As in the proven OptiCare 50° process, an optimal temperature of 50°C is again used to ensure fast and dependable removal of tough soiling, oils and greases.” Under the motto Performance fuelled by nature, the versatile system of five components achieves highly efficient, hygienically clean results while helping to protect textiles and the environment. These highly concentrated, perfectly complementary products provide deep fibre cleaning with exceptional fabric care and, with the optional brightener, are suitable for coloured textiles. This combination enhances conventional industrial washing processes in both economic and ecological terms. This enables sustainability measures to be implemented quickly, easily and effectively without any loss of performance.

Another display clearly demonstrated the effect of the new whiteness booster, OTTALIN BLANC Premium: visitors could see that a single treatment produced a noticeably whiter towel, visible in both daylight and under a range of LED lighting conditions, compared with its untreated counterpart. Specifically developed to fulfil premium standards in terms of both quantifiable and human-perceived whiteness, OTTALIN BLANC Premium is particularly suitable for white hotel and restaurant laundry, as well as white workwear. This helps maintain the bright white appearance of towels over time, even in hotel bathrooms that have no windows. A carefully formulated blend of brighteners enables Ganz whiteness values above 270, with the whitening effect intensifying with every wash and potentially surpassing the textiles’ initial whiteness. “This also helps prolong the life of textiles, as towels maintain their premium whiteness for considerably longer – regardless of the lighting,” explains Thomas Zeck.

Naturally, the wet cleaning system developed by Kreussler 33 years ago, and still regarded as the technological standard, was also featured. A dedicated display featuring a cardigan made from a soft cashmere-wool blend allowed visitors to see – and feel – the difference by directly comparing a new half with one treated using Kreussler products, demonstrating how gentle the original wet cleaning process with Lanadol X-PRESS is on textiles.

In terms of hardware, the EASY T 2.0 dosing system demonstrated the latest model of the company’s internally developed dosing technology for tunnel washing systems, along with the most up-to-date operational data acquisition. This offered visitors fascinating, real-time views of the different data sets and values being analysed.

The AquaBatch water filter formed the second technical showpiece at the Kreussler stand. “Especially in terms of saving water and energy, our new cooperation with our new technology partner Wientjens is highly relevant – the Dutch specialist’s well-known and reliable hardware solutions assist our customers in optimising energy and water management across both existing and new laundries”, said Christoph Richter.

Overall, he gives a thoroughly positive summary of the trade fair: “We are very satisfied with the way Texcare proceeded and are currently engaged in following up on the numerous contacts and enquiries. We welcomed hundreds of visitors from almost every part of the world to our booth, including trading partners from the USA, Australia, China, the Philippines and other countries. We were also pleased to meet many new interested parties alongside our existing customers, who used the opportunity to learn about our services and establish initial contact. Our involvement in the Texcare Forum lecture programme, as well as in the Guided Tours and the new Young Competence Programme, provided exciting additional platforms to present our innovations to a broad audience. We are very much looking forward to the next event!”