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Let’s Talk Wash Chemistry


 

By Al Adcock, Vice President Sales & Marketing, B&C Technologies

When you’re trying to decide what washing products you’re going to use in your commercial laundry, it’s really helpful to understand just what all those different chemicals are and just what they do once they are introduced to the wash cylinder. Today, it’s all about chemistry!

What is a Detergent?

Laundry detergents, whether in powder or liquid form, rely on surfactants as their active ingredients. Surfactants are charged, or “ionic,” molecules with two distinct parts: one interacts well with water, and the other with oils. This dual nature helps lift grease and grime from fabrics and suspend them in water. Surfactants can also create bubbles.

However, dissolved metal salts in water, particularly in “hard” water containing calcium and magnesium, can reduce surfactant effectiveness, leading to soap scum formation. To counteract this, modern detergents include phosphates, water softeners, and metal sequestrants, which prevent soap scum formation. Because phosphates can cause environmental issues like algal blooms, their use in detergents has been reduced. This is also the reason that water softeners are so popular in commercial laundries.

Many detergents also include optical brighteners, which absorb ultraviolet light and emit blue light to create the appearance of brighter whites and colors. Additionally, fragrances are often added for a fresh scent, though they are not essential to cleaning performance. Some detergents also contain enzymes, which will be explained further below.

What Ingredients are in Detergents?

The primary components of laundry powders or solids are salts, such as sodium sulfate, which prevent clumping and add bulk. Sodium carbonate (washing soda) is another common ingredient, helping to break down grease and grime so they dissolve in water.

Powders often include oxidizing agents like sodium percarbonate, a combination of washing soda and hydrogen peroxide, for mild bleaching. Tetraacetylethylenediamine is often added to activate this bleaching effect.

A key advantage of powders is that their components remain separate in solid form, allowing for a more stable formulation. This is why powders typically have visibly distinct granules.

Most modern automatic delivery systems that use solid detergents are only capable of feeding one machine at a time. In a larger laundry, this will require the ability to pause one or more machines when multiple machines are calling for chemicals at the same time. Check with your equipment manufacturer and verify that they have the ability to automatically pause the wash program via a signal from the chemical system. Without it, the solution becomes significantly less elegant.

What Ingredients are in Liquid Detergents?

The main ingredient in liquid detergents is water, with the remaining ingredients carefully formulated for stability and effectiveness. Liquid detergents include surfactants, alkaline salts, metal sequestrants, and water softeners.

Surfactants in liquids can be ionic (charged) or non-ionic (uncharged). Non-ionic surfactants, which are liquid by nature, are better for suspending oils in water and do not form soap scum, making them unsuitable for powders. Liquids also require preservatives to prevent microbial growth.

Unlike powders, liquids do not typically include peroxide-based bleaching agents, which can kill microbes. This absence makes washing machines more susceptible to mold and bacterial transfer. Instead, liquid detergents rely on optical brighteners.

What are Enzymes?

Enzymes are proteins that speed up chemical reactions and target specific stains. For instance, lipase breaks down fats, protease targets proteins, and amylase works on starches and sugars. These enzymes are derived from organisms in cool climates, enabling them to function at typical washing temperatures.

Excessive heat renders them ineffective, meaning cold water washing temperatures between 60-70°F or 15–20°C are ideal.

Powder vs. Liquid: Which is Better?

The choice between powder and liquid detergents depends on factors like performance, cost, environmental impact, and personal preference. Experimenting with different products can help determine what best suits your needs and aligns with considerations like recyclable packaging.

Water is quite dense (8.3lbs/gal or 1kg/liter) and that density affects transportation cost, meaning it’s likely that liquid detergents are more costly than their powdered brethren, as the first ingredient in liquid detergents is typically water. Liquids are somewhat easier to deploy, however, and don’t require overly complicated delivery systems like solid systems do. Solid detergent systems are made up of a “cake” of compressed powdered detergents, onto which water is flushed to create the liquid detergent on site, rather than transporting it.

For example, using a half-dose of a recyclable, enzyme-rich laundry powder at 20°C can be both effective and environmentally friendly.

To learn more about detergent ingredients, ask your chemical consultant, consult product websites or material safety data sheets (MSDS), which detail potentially hazardous chemical contents.

Next week we’ll take a look at more laundry chemicals – their composition, and how they enhance the goods moving through your laundry.

Image top right courtesy of  MasterTux from Pixabay
Image to left courtesy of Binarius from Pixabay.

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About the Author

Al Adcock is VP of Sales and Marketing at B&C Technologies. He is an industry veteran with over 30 years of experience, working for different manufacturers in many different capacities before helping launch B&C Technologies in 2000. Adcock has played an instrumental role in the design of several machines on the market before moving to sales in 2013.

Based in Panama City Beach, FL, B&C Technologies is a family-owned customer-focused company that builds the highest quality laundry equipment at the most competitive prices. All B&C equipment relies on engineering-driven designs to produce machines that consistently perform and constantly produce.