For achieving a worn-out effect or vintage look of denim, the washing industry has been using pumice stones for a very long time. Pumice stone is a round or oval-shaped stone with a rough surface collected from the volcano. The stones and denim are spinned together in industrial washing machines to get the desired effect. Stones scrap off dye particles from the surface of the yarn of the fabric and give the desired result. Stone wash is popular among the washes since it makes the garment suppler to make it comfortable.
Pumice stones have a long list of limitations with all the said benefits. The way stone works may damage the garment and washing machine itself due to their higher abrasion. It leaves stone dust in the garments and in pocket bags, which adds extra rinsing and manual pocket cleaning operations. Moreover, It causes back staining and re-deposition.
It’s time to think of a stone alternative that minimizes these limitations. A project was taken to run a trial in Crown Washing Ltd. with Soko stone-free concept.
Experiment: A team was formed to do the innovation project. Binoy Chandra Halder, a Student of Daffodil International University, was this project’s executor. Moniruzzaman Babu, Production GM, Crown Washing Ltd., was Industry Supervisor, and Md. Forhad Hossan, CEO of Pure Chemicals, was the Industry Expert for this project.
Figure 1: Abrasion effect with Soko and in the conventional method.
A trial was conducted on 100 kg bulk in the conventional process and a 100 kg bulk in the proposed method. Since the rest of the washing process is the same, key differentiating segments of the conventional process and proposed process (with Soko stone-free concept) are mentioned below-