Household detergents

Sodium peroxoborate hexahydrate is an important ingredient of many household detergents, working best at temperatures above 60°C. It is also used in dishwasher detergents, denture cleaners, as well as foot and bath salts. The textile industry generally uses hydrogen peroxide for bleaching, but there are a few areas in which sodium peroxoborate hexahydrate is preferred. 

The commercial product has an active oxygen content of at least 15%. This product has replaced the hexahydrate in some household detergents and other domestic products because it dissolves faster and has a greater content of active oxygen per unit volume of granular product. 

Detergent compositions also vary from country to country. The world market for household detergents can be divided into four segments according to the physicochemical properties of the wash solutions prepared from the detergents. 

Nonionic Surface-Active Agents. Approximately 14% of the ethyleae oxide consumed ia the United States is used in the manufacture of nonionic surfactants. These are derived by addition of ethylene oxide to fatty alcohols, alkylphenols (qv), tall oil, alkyl mercaptans, and various polyols such as poly(propylene glycol), sorbitol, mannitol, and cellulose. They are used in household detergent formulations, industrial surfactant appHcations, in emulsion polymeri2ation, textiles, paper manufacturing and recycling, and for many other appHcations (281). 

Alkylation of benzene using alpha olefins produces linear alkylbenzenes, which are further sulfonated and neutralized to linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LABS). These compounds constitute, with alcohol ethoxy-sulfates and ethoxylates, the basic active ingredients for household detergents. Production of LABS is discussed in Chapter 10. 

In 1932 the first household detergent based on synthetic surfactants was brought into the market under the name FEWA (Feinwaschmittel). The product was produced from fatty alcohol sulfate by Bohme Fettchemie in Chemnitz. The shortage of the necessary natural raw materials caused by World War II led to the development of products based on more readily available raw materials [2],... 

Physical Properties and Behavior of Linear Alkylbenzenesulfonates in Mixtures with Other Surfactants in Household Detergent Products... 

The information presented in this chapter is intended to provide a brief overview of the composition, performance, and formulation properties of LAS by itself and in combination with other surfactants. The particular performance synergies and processing characteristics of certain combinations of surfactants are discussed briefly. The examples of mixed active formulations provided herein represent to the best of the author s knowledge the approximate levels of major surfactants in actual household detergent products both past and present. This does not imply that these formulations are complete because many additives, such as bleaches, enzymes, builders, hydrotropes, thickeners, perfumes, and coloring agents, may also be present in varying amounts. 

Due to their favorable solubility, alkanesulfonates are preferred as surfactants in liquid products and concentrates. The recent trend to renewable resources has led to a somewhat reduced use in formulations of household detergents in past years. While some manufacturers have withdrawn these surfactants from, for example, manual dishwashing detergents, others did not. Besides many other industrial applications, alkanesulfonates are one of the most important emulsifiers in vinyl polymerization. 

One of the reasons that ether carboxylates are used in cosmetic products and some household detergents is their good dermatological behavior, as can be seen from several references in Sections IV.A and IV.B. Also their nontoxic and positive ecological properties have contributed to their increased use in these applications. 

Besides improvement of the dermatological properties of cosmetic formulations, the mildness of household detergents such as dishwashing liquids may also be increased [72,144]. Several authors [51,57,61,64,68,72,144,215] mention, in addition to the good dermatological properties, a good biodegradability and nontoxicity. 

Therefore in many countries the use of surfactants derived from phosphonic acid are limited by law, especially for surfactants of mass products like household detergents that will flow into wastewater effluents. The difficulty in formulating detergents without inorganic polyphosphates is discussed in Ref. 206. 

TABLE 1 Estimated 1990 Demand for Surfactants in Household Detergents (in 1000 Metric Tons)... 

Zeolites are used in various applications such as household detergents, desiccants and as catalysts. In the mid-1960s, Rabo and coworkers at Union Carbide and Plank and coworkers at Mobil demonstrated that faujasitic zeolites were very interesting solid acid catalysts. Since then, a wealth of zeolite-catalyzed reactions of hydrocarbons has been discovered. Eor fundamental catalysis they offer the advantage that the crystal structure is known, and that the catalytically active sites are thus well defined. The fact that zeolites posses well-defined pore systems in which the catalytically active sites are embedded in a defined way gives them some similarity to enzymes. 

FBAs are used to brighten not only textile materials but also paper, leather and plastics. They are important constituents of household detergent formulations. More specialised areas of application include lasers, liquid crystals and biological stains. By far the most important uses for FBAs, however, are in applications to textiles and paper. Much of what follows will be concerned with these two categories. 

There are fundamental differences in approach to the selection of FBAs for either household detergents or textile finishing. Brighteners in detergent formulations are intended to preserve the whiteness of fabrics that already contain FBAs during many successive wash and... 

The instability of DAST-type brighteners towards chlorine-containing bleaches has been mentioned already. They also show limited stability towards per-acids. As recommended washing temperatures have tended to fall in recent years, a bleach consisting of sodium perborate activated by addition of tetra-acetylethylenediamine (11.63) has become an important component of household detergent formulations. This system is effective at temperatures as low as 40-50 °C. Since the FBA may be sensitive to the activated oxidant, however, in some formulations it is necessary to protect compounds such as 11.60 or 11.61 by encapsulating either the brightener or the activator, if adequate shelf-life is to be maintained. 

Madsen T, Buchardt Boyd H.Nylen D, Pedersen AR,I. PG.Simonsen F (2001) Environmental and health assessment of substances in household detergents and cosmetic detergent products CETOX. Environmental Project No. 615. Danish EPA, Copenhagen, http //www.mst.dk/homepage/... 

In general, the change in surfactant consumption is directly coupled to the usage in detergent products, which makes up about 55% of the entire production. Cleaning applications cover a multitude of fields comprising household detergents, consumer products, personal care... 

Classification of major household detergents for Western Europe in 1998 according to end use area [11]... 

While the surfactant mixture composed by mixing the different blends could be cleared up by FIA-MS and MS-MS to a great extent, these methods failed in the identification of most constituents contained in a commercially available household detergent formulation. The limitations of mixture analysis became obvious with the application of the API methods such as ESI and APCI in FIA-MS-MS mode and are described here by means of examples. 

Fig. 2.5.10. (a) APCI-FIA-MS(+), (b) ESI-FIA-MS(+), (c) APCI-FIA-MS(-) and (d) ESI-FIA-MS(—) overview spectra all recorded from the methanolic solution of the same commercially available household detergent mixture containing different types of... 

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