In 1855, Jean Baptiste Jolly, a French dye-works owner, noticed that his table cloth became cleaner after his maid accidentally overturned a kerosene lamp on it. Operating through his dye-works company, Jolly offered a new service and called it "dry cleaning."
Wet clothes were transferred between the washer and dryer. Some systems did incorporate a separate vapor recovery unit, utilizing either a carbon bed or water cooled coils
In the first dry-to-dry machines or second-generation machines, vapors are vented to the atmosphere from the machine washing drum when the machine is opened after the drying cycle. Again some machines utilized either a carbon bed or water-cooled coils.
These were the first “closed-loop” machines. The vapors from the dryer are routed to a refrigerated condenser for solvent recovery.
These closed-loop machines utilize both refrigerated condensers and carbon adsorbers to recover solvent vapors. Reducing the vapor concentration in the wheel to below 300ppm.
Image Courtesy: Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
In addition to a refrigerated condenser and carbon absorber, these closed-loop machines have inductive fans and sensor-actuated lockout device that will not allow entry to the machine door, button trap, or filters until solvent vapors in the machine are below certain levels (generally 300 parts per million (ppm))
