EFFECTS OF CHANGING TEXTILE TECHNOLOGY ON DETERGENT FORMULATIONS

The rapidly changing character of the laundry load has created new cleaning criteria for the modern detergent composition. The effect of some likely changes in detergent formulations on the performance of a representative set of modern fabrics has been investigated. The results indicate that certain benefits in the cleaning of permanent press fabric can be achieved through some rather simple formulation changes. These changes include: the use of olefin sulfonate surfactant; and the use of mixed STPP-SNTA builders. Nonionics and nonionic-LAS mixtures were found to have rather flat response curves on the fabrics in this study. The maintenance of adequate use concentration when laundering with common detergents was also found to be quite beneficial in cleaning the modern textiles. The most apparent progress in achieving better appearance of laundered fabrics has been made by the development of the soil release finish for permanent press. © 1969, The American Oil Chemists’ Society. All rights reserved.