The wfk – Cleaning Technology Institute was established in 1949 and has been located for about 50 years at the Adlerstraße in Krefeld. During that time the areas of work as well as the tasks of the institute expanded continuously due to increasing industrial demands. Nowadays the institute carries out research in the field of cleaning, reprocessing, functionalization and hygiene of various materials. Examples are medical facilities, medical instruments and implants, industrial plants and industrial parts as well as cleanrooms. Personal protective equipment, medical textiles and cleanroom textiles represent examples from the textile field.
Further tasks are the national and international standardization as well as training and education and the performance testing of detergents, cleaning agents and disinfectants as well as of washing, cleaning and disinfecting machinery. Hygiene status and process evaluations are also carried out. In addition test materials for the evaluation of cleaning and disinfecting processes are manufactured.
In 2000 the wfk – Cleaning Technology Institute moved from the old building at the Adlerstraße to a new building at the industrial estate Campus Fichtenhain in Krefeld. Furthermore new buildings in Brueggen-Bracht were completed in 2007 which are mainly used for the production of test materials. Those test materials are applied for investigating the performance of cleaning and disinfecting processes.
About 80 employees work at wfk. The new facilities comprise a total utilizable space of more than 3.600 m2 and include a technical plant of 800 m2 where cleaning processes can be realized under practical conditions. Furthermore modern physical and chemical laboratories, a microbiology lab (class BSL 2 according § 44 IfSG) for investigations with pathogenic germs) as well as demanding cleanrooms for special investigations are available.