Detergents and Detergency

Abstract

AbstractDetergency refers to the removal of unwanted foreign matters from a surface in a liquid bath containing a detergent formulation. A detergent formulation is composed of active ingredients like surfactants and inactive ingredients such as builders, alkalis, antiredeposition agents, enzymes, and hydrotropes. The main active ingredient of the detergent formulation is surfactants that can alter the interfacial effects at the various phase boundaries within the detergent system. Detergent formulations can contain from one to three surfactants. Thus, a typical detergent system consists of a solid object to be cleaned, called the substrate, soil, or dirt to be removed from the substrate surface and a washing liquid bath to be applied to the soiled substrate. Each of these elements in the detergent system can vary widely in properties and composition.This article describes the role of each element in a detergent system. In addition, cleaning mechanisms and the measurement of detergency power in different types of detergent systems are discussed. These systems include fabric detergency and hard surface cleaning. Although it is impossible to list all the practical detersive systems that might be encountered, a large proportion falls in a small number of classes. This classification disregards surfactant structure and type of substrate (fibrous or hard surface) and is restricted to a consideration of the soil present on the substrate, mechanical action employed, bath ratio, and detergent used. Some of the commonly encountered detersive systems are classified on this basis here.