Prewetted Wipers – Proven to Be Convenient and Consistent

We’ve seen the introduction of wipes as one of many solutions to combat the COVID-19 virus. At the outset of the pandemic, everyone was encouraged to wipe down all touchable hard surfaces – food containers, doorknobs, tabletops, counters, packages, etc. Wipes pre-wetted with antiviral solutions of bleach, alcohol, or quaternary ammonium salts are the most convenient for accomplishing these tasks. The demand for these products led to a hygiene boon and an unprecedented spike in production.

Although sudden and exponential in the consumer market, active cleaning with saturated wipes is no surprise to cleanroom operators. They know from experience that pre-wetted wipers offer the most consistent approach for maintaining cleanrooms in a pristine condition, so it was logical to implement a similar process for sanitizing surfaces in a home environment. Whether at work or home, wipes pre-saturated with just the right amount of solution offer a high level of convenience by removing the need for people to spend time preparing, diluting, and mixing cleaning agents. They also assure a highly effective cleaning by delivering the right amount of chemistry to the hard surface to kill the viruses or bacteria.

It’s worth noting that wiping or cleaning with bleach or quaternary ammonium salt solutions leaves innocuous surface residues. Contrast this with cleanroom particle removal, which usually involves alcohol solutions with no surface residue remaining.

Some similarities are also worth noting:

• The offending contaminants in both environments are too small to be seen by the naked eye.
• Removing the offending hard surface contaminants – viral organisms in households or particles in cleanrooms – requires constant diligence and likely multiple cleanings per day
• Convenience is vital for both types of cleaning. If the cleaning product is not conveniently available, cleaning frequency will likely be compromised. In this regard, pre-wetted wipers provide everything needed in one product – the wipers, the wetting solution, and the packaging. They are far more convenient than locating bags of suitable wipers, preparing wetting solutions at the appropriate concentration, and wetting the wiper to the correct degree of dampness. The convenience and consistency of a pre-wetted wiper product translate into a much greater likelihood of cleaning and achieving efficacy.

We hope we’ve shared some general insights in this opening article about the consistency and convenience of pre-wetted wipers.

Next in the series, we’ll be talking about the multitude of fabrics, sizes, edge treatments, and configurations available for pre-wetted wipers and help to answer the question: How do you select the pre-wetted wiper product with the most appropriate wiper for your application?