Textile industry transformed by unique allergen barrier test

03 Jun '11

2 min read

A unique textile allergen barrier test that overcomes the shortcomings of many existing industry test methods, is now available through the airmid healthgroup.

The tendency for many retailers and manufacturers to rely on pore size and thread count to demonstrate a fabric's ability to block allergens can be very misleading. Pore size only loosely correlates with allergen filtration efficacy and there are a number of factors that contribute to this including van der vaals forces and allergen conformation. A high thread count fabric may also be poorly constructed, allowing the passage of allergens.

However, retailers and textile manufacturers can now validate their allergen claims with the Allergen Barrier Test with Airflow, a unique test by airmid healthgroup. This test provides extremely accurate and repeatable results, through utilising house dust with a known concentration of Dust Mite & Cat Allergen (Derp1 & Feld1 respectively), which is pulled across a fabric by airflow. Located downstream a filter collects any allergen that passes through. The amount of allergen recovered on the filter is extracted and quantified using an ELISA kit specific for different types of allergens.

“Results generated by the Allergen Barrier Test with Airflow allows manufacturers and retailers to directly claim allergen blocking ability for fabrics against a number of allergens accurately and repeatedly”, said Fraser Hodgson, Chief Operations Officer at airmid healthgroup. “Our unique research techniques and third-party testing provides proactive companies with innovative information to achieve technological and marketing advantages”.

airmid healthgroup is a physician-founded research facility whose gold standard science is accepted by leading non-profit asthma and allergy foundations in both North America and Europe. Founded in 2007, the company has already proved an invaluable product development partner to the world's leading bedding and textile companies. With core expertise in the area of preventing ill health due to indoor air pollutants, airmid scientists apply their skills to evaluate complex interactions of biological, chemical and physical properties associated with textiles, providing customers with a complete solution for a healthy indoor environment and label claim validation.

airmid healthgroup

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