How are Liquid Detergents Made?

[sudsmaster]

This information is a little hard to come by, perhaps because there are different types of surfactants out there with different physical characteristics. I believe many if not most synthetic detergents surfactants, the stuff that causes sudsing, are liquid, pastes, or at least soft solids like soap. That's because they are really modified fatty acids. The liquid or soft solid has to be made into an aerosol and dried, or absorbed into a carrier, to allow it to be added to a powder forumulation. This means that you can actually pack more surfactant/sudsing agents into a liquid laundry detergent formulation than into a powder of the same volume.

But powders generally clean fabrics better than liquids. Why? Because a surfactant, and the sudsing it can create, is only part of the cleaning equation. Also needed is a builder, a break, and a water softener. These are essential for getting ground in dirt and many stains off fabrics. The surfactant will make plenty of suds but suds do NOT necessarily equal cleaning power.

There are some "dry surfactants" out there but they seem to be in the minority...

Intuvio server - siden er ikke tilgjengelig

 

[sudsmaster]

More info from Unger...

Heavy Duty (Laundry) Powders

Unger Surfactants range of dry products is the perfect choice as primary or secondary surfactant in your Heavy Duty powder. Unger Surfactants dry products can easily and be incorporated into your formulation whether the product is produced by a non-tower, tower or dry blending route.
Traditionally laundry powders are produced by spray drying. Slurries of the key raw materials that may contain more than 50% of water yields a base powder with a low bulk density and low surfactant content. Minor components or heat sensitive ingredients, such as enzymes and bleach activators, is then introduced to the formulation by post dosing in a final step. To increase the surfactant level in such formulations one can also introduce dry surfactants in the post dosing step. Ungers Surfactants range of THONYL dry LAS qualities or UFAROL T dry FAS qualities are suitable for this purpose. Contact us for more information.

Spray drying is becoming more and more obsolete due to the energy inefficiency of spray drying and the shift in the market towards more compact formulations. These compact formulations are either made by modification of spray dried powders, high-shear agglomeration and in-situ neutralization process or dry blending.

In the high-shear in-situ neutralization process there is commonly challenging to adsorb all the liquid components to the builder matrix. To substitute parts of the LABSA (linear alkyl benzene sulfonic acid) with dry anionic surfactants may increase production output, improve flow and reduce lumping. One may also increase the content of liquid non-ionic surfactants without bleeding and wetting of the cardboard box. For more information contact us.

Dry blending is commonly for smaller scale production and in I&I applications. Unger surfactants range of dry products are perfect as primary anionic surfactant for this purpose.

Intuvio server - siden er ikke tilgjengelig

 

[stan]

Where's the dude

That started this thread?
Did he get his question answered ?

 

[liberatordeluxe]

Hi Stan I did get the information I wanted thanks. The link to Persil Small and Mighty was quite interesting to see how it was made. Hardly any water in that which is good to know.

 

[stan]

Oh good

I'm glad you did!
Now I'll go look at the " small and mighty" post LOL

 

[liamy1]

wanted to know if they have a shelf life compared to powder.

Going a bit back to about whether laundry products have an expiry, look below to what is on a bottle of Comfort fabric softener that I bought today. Never seen it before :/

 

[liberatordeluxe]

Do the main brand liquids differ that much in ingredients to the top brands? A guy off another site suggested that own brand liquids rot the spider support on the washing machine. No idea if this is true or if he gets a pay rise for recommending a top brand. If there is a Washer engineer would love to hear your take on it. Didn't want to start a new thread as it is linked to liquids.