Method of producing absorbent structures with high wet strength, absorbency, and softness
A method of making an absorbent structure including forming a stock mixture of fibers, a cationic wet strength resin, an anionic polyacrylamide and a cellulase enzyme, and at least partially drying the stock mixture to form a web.
1. A method of making an absorbent structure comprising:
forming a stock mixture of fibers, a cationic wet strength resin, an anionic polyacrylamide and a cellulase enzyme; and
at least partially drying the stock mixture to form a web.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of forming the at least partially dried stock mixture into a web comprises forming two or more webs.
3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising plying the two or more webs together to form a multi-ply absorbent structure.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the web is formed by forming a first web and a second web and layering the first and second webs together so that the web is a multi-layer web.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cationic wet strength resin comprises one of a type selected from the group consisting of: polyethyleneimine, polyethylenimine, polyaminoamide-epihalohydrin (preferably epichlorohydrin) polyamine-epichlorohydrin, polyamide, polyvinyl amide wet strength resin and combinations thereof.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cellulase enzyme comprises mono-component or multi-component endo-cellulases, exo-cellulases, or cellobiase cellulases.
7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising use of a structured fabric to form the web.