Patent ID: 6855173

Claim:
A process for treating a fabric comprising the steps of: a. exposing a fabric to a lipophilic fluid and water, said lipophilic fluid being selected from the group consisting of linear or cyclic siloxanes, perfluorinated amines, C6 or higher diols, polyol esters, and mixtures thereof; b. recovering said lipophilic fluid and said water in the form of a lipophilic fluid and water emulsion from said fabric; c. exposing said lipophilic fluid and water emulsion to an absorbent matrix comprising an absorbent material comprising a polymer selected from the group consisting of surface cross-linked polyacrylate, surface cross-linked polyacrylamide and mixtures thereof, in order to effect the removal of said water from said lipophilic fluid and water emulsion such that the lipophilic fluid is recovered as collected lipophilic fluid.