General Purpose Cleaner—Household

General-Purpose Cleaners. These are products which can be used for a variety of household applications including spray or bucket cleaners to be used to wash walls, woodwork, porcelain, linoleum, etc. These products generally contain much smaller amounts of active, as they are to be used in a more concentrated form for eventual dilution with water in actual application. These products can contain 5 to 10 percent nonionic in the total liquid and may also contain TKPP as well as certain solvents such as ethylene glycol mono n-butyl ether. The general choice of products for this application would be the standard to alcohols... 

Bathroom cleaners are the predominant area where soil prevention treatments are important. There are very few kitchen or general-purpose cleaners that make claims to make general household surfaces easier to clean, although there is patent literature to that effect. However, this is a growing and increasingly important benefit in bathroom cleaning. Are bathroom surfaces that much harder to clean... 

This formulation is designed as a general purpose household cleaner. The product may be used with a sponge or may be used in a spray bottle. 

Originally, toilet bowl cleaners, like all-purpose cleaners, were powders based largely on sodium bisulfate [364], They were packaged in dispensers very much like powder abrasive cleansers. In fact, many products that have been mentioned in this review are used to clean the toilet. General bathroom cleaners, liquid and powder abrasive scourers, all-purpose cleaners, and even simple household bleach are used by consumers for this task. Modern cleaners specialized for toilet bowl cleaning, however, have one factor in common that these other formulas... 

Household cleaners are generally used on every hard surface in the home except for dishes. In this chapter, the discussion concentrates on specialty cleaners that are formulated for specific cleaning problems, whereas all-purpose cleaners and their variants are covered in Chapter 2. This means that most of this chapter will be spent discussing cleaners used in the bathroom—such as soap scum cleaners, mildew removers, and toilet bowl cleaners. Additionally, there are cleaners that are used for extremely narrow use, such as oven and drain cleaners. Disinfectant cleaners as variants of all-purpose cleaning were covered in the previous chapter, but will also be covered here with the emphasis on the disinfectant action rather than on the cleaning function. 

As in the all-purpose cleaners, specialty cleaners generally have a combination of surfactants for most effective cleaning. These are usually combinations of anionic and nonionic surfactants. However, as was noted in the discussions above, there are times when solely nonionic surfactants are needed. Over the past 20 years, the household cleaners have gradually made more and more use of amine oxide, betaines, and more specialized nonionics. Amine oxides were always well used in hypochlorite-containing products, but are now used in other cleaners as well. However, the use of linear alkyl benzene sulfonates, alkyl sulfates, and ethoxylated alkyl sulfates are still very prevalent. As stated before, the main choice of surfactant is dictated by the other chemistry in the cleaner—acid, alkaline, bleach, and quats. 

Manufacturers Comments General purpose bathroom and kitchen adhesive-sealant. Resistance to humidity, household cleaners ... 

Chem. Descrip. Alkylbenzene (C11.4) sulfonic acid, linear and other components Uses Softener used in household, l l cleaners incl. laundry, dishwash, canwash, hard surf., and general purpose detergents intermediate in preparation of emulsifiers and wetting and foaming agents... 

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