How To Identify Carpet Fibers

Do you offer carpet cleaning as a service in your cleaning business? Then you should know how to identify carpet fibers so that you know what to use to clean the carpet. For example, if you have a nylon fiber carpet, you don't want to use a chemical that exceeds 10.5 pH, or you can void the warranty.

There are three ways to identify carpet fibers:

1. Visual Identification- least accurate
2. Burn Testing- more accurate than visual and most commonly used
3. Chemical Testing- most accurate, but not practical

Visual Identification:

• Natural Fibers
  - Cotton - found in the backing of woven carpets
  - Jute - found in carpet backing
  - Wool - dull appearance, cut pile, appears in woven goods
  - Silk - found in expensive oriental rugs
• Synthetic Fibers
  - Nylon - most carpets are nylon
  - Polyester - found in pastels
  - Olefin - if it looks like astro turf or indoor/outdoor carpet it may be olefin
  - Acrylic - may look like wool, but less resilient

Burn Testing:

• Technique: burn the yarn sample and observe the following:
  - flame color and action
  - smoke
  - action of burning sample
  - odor
  - ash shape, color, luster, and consistency

Chemical Testing:

• Cotton - dissolves in strong acids
• Wool - dissolves in chlorine bleach
• Nylon - dissolves in formic acid
• Olefin - floats on water

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