BARNHARDT BLEACHED COTTON: OVERVIEW

Barnhardt Manufacturing bleaches cotton fiber to customer specifications using safe and approved chlorine-free formulae and process controls. Production lots are traceable, consistent, and designed for your product application. Attainable fiber characteristics are summarized in the appended table.
The leading producer of all grades of bleached cotton fiber, Barnhardt's business focus is to provide safe and effective grades of finished bleached cotton for use in medical, pharmaceutical, health, personal and home care applications. Bleaching involves the removal of contamination in and on the cotton fiber followed by the removal of its natural color. While still wet and in process, it is possible to change some of the fundamental fiber properties such as pH, biodegradability, softness, surface friction, and absorbency.

Bleached cotton has proven success in products that clean, exfoliate, wipe, absorb, remove, protect, filter, apply, abrade, polish, contain, and deliver. Additionally, bleached cotton is uniquely-suited to upgrading existing products and the development of new ones.

Barnhardt can provide short, medium, and long fiber length bleached cotton in bales, slivers or in carded webs. Specialty and exclusive grades with facilitating finishes can be provided in lot sizes from 15,000 pounds upwards -- a feature not available with other fiber types.

Barnhardt does not provide approximate solutions -- we provide exactly what you, your processing, and your product requires.

BLEACHED COTTON SAFETY
Barnhardt Bleached Cotton:

• Unsurpassed history of safe and effective usage in medical, health, pharmaceutical, and consumer product applications
• Hypoallergenic and non-cytotoxic
• A natural absorbent, superior to all fibers in not requiring a finish to ensure wetting, wicking, or absorbency. However, it is available with FDA-approved finishes to enhance processing and end product function
• Safe for all skin contact and personal care applications
• Meets FDA criteria for inclusion in Class I medical devices
• A principal source of natural cellulose for food ingredient applications
• Made from raw cotton carefully regulated by the FDA because cotton production also generates cotton seed oil for human consumption
• Typically has a bioburden content in the as-delivered form of 50 cfu/gram, significantly below any level of microbiological concern in consumer products. For stringent applications, bleached cotton can be provided with food or pharmaceutical preservatives. It is also stable to, and unaffected by, all sterilization procedures (eg. Et O, Gamma, Steam, and UV)

ADAPTABILITY
Barnhardt bleached cotton fiber length, finish, and fineness can be selected to match the fiber composition, product performance desired, and your manufacturing process. Customers find that our cotton will process well and with minimum equipment adjustments on:

• Absorbent core formers
• Spunlacing and hydroentangling lines
• Carding and bonding installations
• Thermal bonding blending lines
• Needlepunch
• Airlay formers
• Composite and nonwovens laminating converting lines
• Coform installations
• Hybrid lines - spunbonding/SMS and wet-forming

As a multifunctional absorbent, bleached cotton will accept and retain functional additives like fragrances, antimicrobials, surfactants and detergents, alcohols, and astringents.
Barnhardt bleached cotton is also free of the processing and performance enhancers normally required in synthetic fibers such as PET, PP, and PE, and consequently does not degrade cosmetic formulations and fragrances used in skin care wipes and personal products.

Additionally, by changing fiber fineness and surface finish, one may attain a wide range of tactile, softness, flexibility, or mildly-abrasive textures improving end products such as wipes, cosmetic pads, and skin care products.

Finally, there are significant environmental benefits. Bleached cotton degrades rapidly in septic, sewage, and waste disposal systems.

In 1999, Barnhardt began construction on the world's only continuous bleaching line, bringing it to commercialization in February, 2001. The continuous process (CP) produces a very open bleach cotton product with the ability to add finishes for most every end-use application. The CP bleached cotton provides superior raw material for nonwoven manufacturers. The openness, combined with the lower nep counts, provides unparalleled web consistency.