With over 1,000 installations worldwide, the M-clean^™ system continues to be a go-to solution for fabric cleaning equipment in the pulp and paper industry. Particularly for demanding applications where the machine is running recycled fiber. Many customers have asked Kadant to look at the forming section where sheet breaks occur due to contamination or debris falling onto the sheet from slime build-up.

In 2018, following the successful installation of two dryer fabric cleaning systems on testliner machines in Europe, the customer asked Kadant to look at the possibility of cleaning its forming fabric on a 7500 mm wide machine running at up to 1000 mpm.

The problem was spray mist from the conventional high-pressure cleaning shower settling on the forming section framework, creating slime with the recycled fiber and after building up, dropping off the framework onto the forming fabric which creates a sheet break further along the machine.

Kadant Nordic’s engineers developed a modified version of the M-clean system to operate on the forming fabric with the objective to eliminate spray mist by turning off the conventional high-pressure shower and operating only the M-clean PRO system, which uses significantly less freshwater to clean the fabric.

Kadant has also been involved in discussions with several European tissue manufacturers who are utilizing for testing the fabrics as the contamination is very different from that experienced in the dryer section of conventional paper machine.

Tissue makers must work with virgin fiber which becomes contaminated, as broke used to supplement the virgin fiber contains glue from the converting process where tissue is glued to a cardboard core to form kitchen or toilet rolls. The furnish can also be 100% waste from de-inked fiber or conventional sorted and cleaned waste.

Further issues depend on the forming section configuration. For example, if the machine has a crescent former or twin wire forming section.

After significant testing at the Kadant Nordic pilot plant running used forming, a European tissue producer awarded Kadant the order to install a forming fabric cleaning device on one of its machines.

Kadant Nordic is the only company able to offer trial cleaning of dryer fabric or forming fabrics to give customers the confidence to proceed with the installation of such equipment.