Simply put, microfiber cleaning products work because each tiny little fiber has an incredible amount of surface area. This means there is more space for dirt and liquid to bond to.
In the last fifteen years the popularity of microfiber cleaning products such as towels, mops, and dusters has grown exponentially. The reason for this popularity is simple, they’re extremely effective. Microfiber products clean with less effort than traditional methods and often without the need of additional chemicals. Microfiber cleaning products are also more ergonomic than traditional cleaning equipment.
First, let’s look at what microfiber is. Microfiber is defined as any fiber that is 1 denier or less (denier is a measurement of fineness equal to a unit of fiber weighing one gram for each 9000 meters). To put that into perspective, microfiber is approximately 1/100th the diameter of a human hair and 1/20th the diameter of a strand of silk. There are approximately 200,000 fibers in one square inch of a typical microfiber towel. High Quality microfiber used for cleaning is often 0.5 denier or smaller. That creates a lot of surface area in which to absorb liquid or hold dust and dirt.
In cleaning products microfiber is a blend of polyester and polyamide (nylon). In higher quality cleaning textiles the fiber is split during the manufacturing process to produce spaces in each fiber. If you were to look at a cross section of split microfiber it would look like an asterisk. It’s the split fiber working in conjunction with the space between them that do the work. They pick up and hold the dust and dirt, and absorb liquid. Lower quality microfiber cleaning products may not be split (neither is microfiber clothing or furniture because you don’t want them to be absorbent).