Patent ID: 7767058

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a wet wipe product comprising: providing a continuous, preformed, nonwoven self-supporting sheet-form wet wiping web material constructed for a predetermined wet wiping task, at least 20% by weight of the wet wiping material comprising thermoplastic fibers, the thermoplastic fibers being of type, concentration and dispersion selected to be capable of being heat-set when the material is in a reformed shape to set the thermoplastic fibers and thereby the overall web material in the reformed shape, the web material comprising a fiber assemblage which includes a substantial proportion of wood pulp fibers, the fiber assemblage being substantially free of thermoplastic binder, forming, by dry creping action, a succession of ridges and grooves in the preformed wet wiping material by passing the material through a dry creper apparatus in the absence of an adhesive agent, the action characterized by pressing against one side of the material with a stationary pressing surface, to cause the opposite side of the material to engage with an advancing drive surface in the absence of adhesion to the advancing surface, and thereby driving the sheet material forward against previously dry creped material which has been retarded, to cause bodily collapse of the material into a succession of adjacent ridges and grooves that increase the volume of the overall material, the dry-creping being conducted in a manner leaving the wood pulp fibers substantially permanently uncompressed in the direction of the thickness of the assemblage, heating the wet wiping material to a temperature and in a manner sufficient to heat-set the dry-creped thermoplastic fibers and thereby the ridge and groove configuration of the overall material to enable the ridges and groove configuration to be preserved when the wet wiping material is wetted, and thereafter fabricating the continuous wet wiping material with its heat-set ridges and grooves into a series of wipe members for individual use.