Laundry Detergent

The first soaps were manufactured in ancient times through a variety of

methods, most commonly by boiling fats and ashes. Archeologists excavating
sites in ancient Babylon have found evidence indicating that such soaps were
used as far back as 2800 B.C. By the second century A.D., the Romans were
regularly making soap, which they had probably begun to produce even
earlier.

In Europe, the use of soap declined during the Middle Ages. However, by the
fifteenth century, its use and manufacture had resumed, and an olive-oil based
soap produced in Castile, Spain, was being sold in many parts of the known
world. Castile soap, which is still available today, has retained its reputation as
a high-quality product.

During the colonial period and the eighteenth century, Americans made their
own soap at home, where most continued to produce it until soap
manufacture shifted away from individual homes to become an industry
during the 1930s. The first detergent, or artificial soap, was produced in
Germany during World War I. In 1946, the first built detergent appeared,
comprising a surfactant (a surface-acting agent or soap) and a builder (a
chemical that enhances the performance of the surfactant as well as rendering
the laundering process more effective in other ways). Pushed along by
economic prosperity and the development of relatively inexpensive washing
machines in the wake of World War II, detergent sales soared; by 1953, they
had surpassed soap sales in the United States.

Raw Materials

Although people commonly refer to laundry detergent as "soap," it is actually

a synthetic combination that functions much like soap, with certain major
improvements. Soap cleans because each soap molecule consists of a
hydrocarbon chain and a carboxylic group (fatty acids) that perform two
important functions. The carboxylate end of the soap molecule is hydrophilic,
meaning that it is attracted to water, while the hydrocarbon end of the
molecule is both hydrophobic (repelled by water) and attracted to the oil and
grease in dirt. While the hydrophobic end of a soap molecule attaches itself to
dirt, the hydrophilic end attaches itself to water. The dirt attached to the
carboxylate end of the molecule is chemically dragged away from the clothes
being cleaned and into the wash water. Properly agitating and rinsing the
clothes furthers the cleansing process.

The major difficulty with using soap to clean laundry shows up when it is used
in hard water—water that is rich in natural minerals such as calcium,
magnesium, iron, and manganese. When these chemicals react with soap, they
form an insoluble curd called a precipitate. Difficult to rinse out, the
precipitate leaves visible deposits on clothing and makes fabric feel stiff. Even
water that is not especially hard will eventually produce precipitates over a
period of time.

While the hydrocarbons used in soap generally come from plants or animals,
those used in detergent can be derived from crude oil. Adding sulfuric acid to
the processed hydrocarbon produces a molecule similar to the fatty acids in
soap. The addition of an alkali to the mixture creates a surfactant molecule

In the blender method of making powder laundry detergent, the ingredients—

surfactant, builders, antiredeposition agents, and perfumes—are simply
blended together in a mixer, released onto a conveyor belt, and packaged
accordingly. This method is favored by smaller companies.
that will not bond with the minerals in hard water, thus avoiding the
accumulation of precipitates.

In addition to a surfactant, modern detergent contains several other

ingredients. Among the most significant are builders, chemicals which serve
several purposes. Most importantly, they increase the efficiency of the
surfactant. They also sequester minerals in hard water, meaning that they
hold them in solution, preventing them from precipitating out. Furthermore,
builders can emulsify oil and grease into tiny globules that can be washed
away. Some, like sodium silicate, inhibit corrosion and help assure that the
detergent will not damage a washing machine. Still other builders contribute
to the chemical balance of the wash water, making sure that it conduces to
effective washing.

Modern detergents have several other ingredients including antiredeposition

agents, chemicals that help prevent soil from settling back on washed clothes.
Fluorescent whitening agents are also common. By converting invisible
ultraviolet light into visible blue light, these help to maintain brightness or
whiteness. Oxygen bleaches such as sodium perborate improve the detergency
of the mixture, especially in low-phosphate or no-phosphate products, as well
as helping to remove some types of stains. Processing aids such as sodium
sulfate are also used to prevent caking and to standardize product density.

Enzymes and perfumes are also found in commercial detergents. Enzymes (a

type of protein) break down some stains to make them easier to remove and
are an essential ingredient in various pre-soak products used to treat heavily
soiled clothes prior to laundering. Perfumes or fragrances cover the odor of
the dirt and any chemical smell from the detergent itself. Suds control agents
also have a role in detergents—too many suds can cause mechanical problems
with a washing machine.

The Manufacturing
Process
Although there are three ways of manufacturing dry laundry detergent, only
two are commonly used today. In the blender process favored by smaller
companies, the ingredients are mixed in large vats before being packaged. The
machines used are very large: a common blender holds 4,000 pounds (1,816
kilograms) of mixed material, but the blenders can accommodate loads
ranging from 500 to 10,000 pounds (227 to 4,540 kilograms). By industry
standards, these are small batches for which the blender process is ideal.
While some settling may occur, the resulting detergent is of high quality and
can compete with detergents made by other processes. The second commonly
used method of production is called the agglomeration process. Unlike the
blender process, it is continuous, which makes it the choice of very large
detergent manufacturers. The agglomeration process can produce between
15,000 and 50,000 pounds (6,800 and 22,700 kilograms) of detergent per
hour. In the third method, dry ingredients are blended in water before being
dried with hot air. Although the resulting product is of high quality, the fuel
costs and engineering problems associated with venting, reheating, and
reusing the air have led to this method being largely replaced by
agglomeration.

The blender process

• 1 First, ingredients are loaded into one of two machines: a tumbling

blender or a ribbon blender. The tumbling blender, shaped like a
rectangular box, is turned and shaken from outside by a machine, while
the ribbon blender is a cylinder fitted with blades to scrape and mix the
ingredients. After the ingredients inside the blender have been mixed, a
doorway at the bottom of the bowl is opened. With the blender still
agitating the ingredients, the mix is allowed to run out onto a conveyor
belt or other channeling device. The belt then moves the detergent to
another area of the factory where it can be dropped into boxes or
cartons for delivery to wholesalers or distributors.

The agglomeration process

• 2 In this method, dry ingredients for a detergent are first fed into a
large machine known as a Shuggi agglomerator (Shuggi is the
 manufacturer). Inside the agglomerator, sharp, whirling blades mix the
material to a fine consistency; the process resembles food being
textured inside a food processor.
• 3 After the dry ingredients have been blended, liquid ingredients are
sprayed on the dry mix through nozzles fitted into the agglomerator's
walls. The blending continues, causing an exothermic (heat-producing)
reaction to occur. The resulting mixture is a hot, viscous liquid similar
to gelatin that hasn't hardened.
• 4 Next, the liquid is allowed to flow out of the agglomerator. As it leaves
the machine, it collects on a drying belt where its own heat, exposure to
air, and hot air blowers render it friable—easy to crush or crumble. The
newly made detergent is then pulverized and pushed through sizing
screens that ensure that no large lumps of unmixed product go out to
the market. The result of this process is a dry detergent made up of
granules of the mixed detergent.

The slurry method

• 5 In this process, ingredients are dissolved in water to create a slurry.

With a pump, the slurry is blown through nozzles inside the top of a
cone shaped container as hot, dry air is simultaneously forced into the
bottom of the cone. As the slurry dries, "beads" of dry detergent fall to
the bottom of the cone, where they can be collected for packaging.

Liquid detergent

• 6 If the detergent is to be liquid rather than powder, it is simply mixed

back in—after all ingredients are blended—with a solution consisting of
water and various chemicals known as solubilizers. The solubilizers
help the water and detergent blend together more fully and evenly.

Quality Control

Manufacturers constantly monitor the quality of their detergents, and they

utilize the same testing methods to assess the effectiveness of new products.
In one method, light is shined onto a piece of fabric that has been soiled and
then washed in the test detergent. The
To make liquid detergent, the dry powder is simply mixed back in with a
solution consisting of water and chemicals known as "solubilizers." These
chemicals help the water and detergent blend together more evenly.
amount of light reflected, compared to the amount reflected by a sample of the
original fabric, is a measure of cleanliness. A reflection rate of 98 percent is
considered quite good and indicates that the detergent has cleaned properly.

Another method involves laboratory burning of a small amount of material

that has been soiled and then laundered. The weight of the ashes, plus the
weight of the gaseous results of the burning, reveal how much of the dirt
remained in the fabric after laundering. A result that is much higher than a
clean test sample indicates that a significant amount of dirt was retained in
the laundered sample. Naturally, the goal is to come as close to the weight of a
clean control sample as possible.

Byproducts

In recent years, the laundry detergent industry has been faced with two
environmental challenges, both of which have seem to have been dealt with
successfully. Environmentalists were concerned that phosphate builders
added large amounts of phosphorous compounds to the nation's waterways.
Acting as a fertilizer, the phosphorus stimulated the growth of algae, and these
unnaturally large crops of algae significantly depleted the amount of dissolved
oxygen in water. This decrease in free oxygen harmed other marine life, thus
threatening to disrupt normal ecological patterns.
This problem, and the environmental pressure and legislation it prompted in
the late 1960s, led manufacturers to develop effective builders that did not
contain phosphates. Today, detergents sold in many states are phosphate-free.
Although this adjustment did not entail a change in the manufacturing
process, it did require a research effort that took several months to devise a
satisfactory alternative.

An earlier environmental problem was that of excess detergent foam

appearing in the nation's waterways. In the early 1950s, when home use of
washing machines and laundry detergents grew at an explosive rate, there
were several instances of large amounts of foam appearing in rivers and
streams, although detergent may not have been the only cause of the foaming.
Over a period of five years, from 1951 to 1956, it was found that a common
surfactant, ABS (alkyl benzene sulfonate), the detergent ingredient that
contributed to foaming, was responsible. ABS's complex molecular structure
did not biodegrade rapidly enough to keep it from foaming once washing
water was discharged. A proven replacement was not immediately available.
Beginning in 1956, however, manufacturers replaced ABS with LAS (linear
alkylate sulfonate), which biodegrades rapidly, and since that time, LAS has
been the primary foaming agent in detergents.

Where To Learn More

Books

De Groot, W. Herman. Sulphonation Technology in the Detergent Industry.

Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.

Periodicals and Pamphlets

Marbach, William D. "Cleaner Clothes from Worms." Business Week.

December 7, 1992, p. 123.

Pinder, Jeanne B. "Laundry Detergent Takes Formula from Nature." New

York Times. March 10, 1993, p. C3 (N).
Smith, Emily T. "Fungus around the Collar Could Clean Up Lipstick Stains."
Business Week. February 15, 1988, p. 107.

Soaps and Detergents. The Soap and Detergent Association, 1981.

— Lawrence H. Berlow

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