Alcohol heavy-duty laundry liquids

Nonionic surfactants are increasingly popular active ingredients for liquid heavy duty laundry detergent formulations. The majority of nonionic surfactants are polyoxyethylene or polyoxypropylene derivatives of alkyl-phenol, fatty acids, alcohols, and amides. It has been estimated that approximately one ethylene oxide unit is required to solubilize each methylene unit. Thus, by changing the ratio of ethylene oxide to fatty acid, the nature of the surfactant can be modified from an... 

Again, the optimum nonionic of choice for this application will depend upon the type of soil to be removed in the laundry process. For example, Figure 3 shows the optimum nonionic for removing typical sebum soil (body oil) in a nonbuilt heavy duty liquid. This figure shows that the optimum lies in the circle between and C., alcohol at an ethylene oxide level of 60 to oO percent. The peak of this optimum would be in the vicinity of a alcohol with 70 percent EO. This is considerably higher in EO content than the ethylene oxide optimum found for powdered laundry detergents. 

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