Glass Man
New member
I've always been a diaper man myself. That is I have always believed that chemically speaking cotton was one of the most water absorbant threads or fibers going. Owed to its use of cellulose. According to the Wik,"Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula (C6H10O5)n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand β(1→4) linked D-glucose units." If you go to the Wik and check out the chemical diagram you will see all those OH groups just waiting like hungry little hands to grab a water molecule. I used this same thinking when I was looking around for a water dispersive polymer to form a one mil antifog film for mirror glass. Answer;...PVA powder. PolyVinylAlcohol. Come to find out there is a manufacturer that makes a PVA microfiber sponge cloth for detailing cars.
I began looking at the type of microfibers used in the Professional Detailers line of towels and found they are mainly a blend of polyester and polyamide. Now microfibers will absorb based on wicking alone. Microfibers do very well with this because of their size. Also some of these are hollow. Which helps to suck up water by wicking action. But will the individual molecules of the fibers be attracted to water molecules like cotton and pva is? Unless these molecules were created with exposed OH groups it seems difficult to believe they would be. I remember once playing with a pva microfiber sponge cloth for cleaning glass with pure water. It worked great. When damp it was as soft as a babys butt. But when dry it was quite hard.
Remember guys I just do glass. So I don't know from experience what you know. I was just wondering if anyone has ever given any thought to exactly what towels are made of, and if there might be some way they could be improved.
Henry
I began looking at the type of microfibers used in the Professional Detailers line of towels and found they are mainly a blend of polyester and polyamide. Now microfibers will absorb based on wicking alone. Microfibers do very well with this because of their size. Also some of these are hollow. Which helps to suck up water by wicking action. But will the individual molecules of the fibers be attracted to water molecules like cotton and pva is? Unless these molecules were created with exposed OH groups it seems difficult to believe they would be. I remember once playing with a pva microfiber sponge cloth for cleaning glass with pure water. It worked great. When damp it was as soft as a babys butt. But when dry it was quite hard.
Remember guys I just do glass. So I don't know from experience what you know. I was just wondering if anyone has ever given any thought to exactly what towels are made of, and if there might be some way they could be improved.
Henry