As one of the main ingredients, water plays a pivotal role in the wet wipes manufacturing and definitely has its own story to tell. Today, almost all manufacturers embrace reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment technology in their lotion compounding operations. For many manufacturers, RO water treatment does provide a better level of filtration, compared to traditional filtration technologies that rely on a screen or filter to remove particles. But, is there an even better way to treat water in an era that cares about health and quality of life more than ever? American Hygienics Corporation (AHC), one of the largest wet wipe manufacturers in Asia, offers a good answer.

Actually, one of the ways that AHC separates itself from the competition is the water it uses to manufacture its wet wipes. AHC boasts an advanced water purification system to guarantee that its bio-pharma class EDI water complies with the standard of FDA USP grade.

While RO water treatment is a kind of filtration process—water is squeezed through the membrane under pressure while the dissolved salts are left behind, Electrodeionization (EDI) is an electrically-driven water treatment technology that uses electricity, ion exchange membranes and resin to remove ionized species from water.

EDI water treatment caters to the pharmaceutical industry and is used for eco-friendly desalination of water, removing harmful ions and other charged species from water. For those who have particularly stringent requirements regarding microbiological quality of purified water, it is an extremely cost-effective method to ensure maximum safety with the best purified water from a microbiological perspective. 

According to the staff of AHC, the company's water purification system features BWT 316L stainless steel and European design and installation, and the EDI water is pollution free, salt free and impurity free. The TOC (total organic carbon) content of the product water is less than 0.05PPM, while ions and CO2 can be reduced to a very low value.

Frank Wang, Quality Director at AHC, said that AHC's EDI module features patented BWT technologies and the process produces water of very high purity. Thanks to its continuous, stable and highly automated production process, the water use efficiency at AHC’s factory reaches 85%, a significant improvement compared to 70% for RO water treatment. 

Besides, EDI water system utilizes chemical-free regeneration. That means the EDI system membranes and electricity replace the million gallons of acid and caustic chemicals that the old processes required daily, and thus shutdown and downtime for acid and base regeneration can be avoided and no acid-base dilution and transportation facilities or acid-base reserves are required. This could also avoid human touch with acid and caustic chemicals.

There is no recycled waste water involved and therefore no waste water treatment facilities are required. Water used for backwashing and cleaning purposes, as well as the costs of water recycling, waste water treatment and discharge can also be saved. Moreover, the EDI facilities are space-saving due to the very compact design, and this allows easier installation and maintenance.

"The investment in EDI water treatment shows not only our commitment to bio-pharma class quality and efficient wet wipes production but also our concern and care for environment and health of our workforces by avoiding the use of acid and caustic chemicals," said Nilesh Parmar, CEO and founder of AHC.