Detergent

Laundry detergents are just one of many possible uses for detergents

Detergent is a compound, or a mixture of compounds, intended to assist cleaning. The term is sometimes used to differentiate between soap and other chemical surfactants used for cleaning purposes.

Composition

Detergents, especially those made for use with water, often include different components such as:

• Surfactants to \'cut\' grease and to wet surfaces
• Abrasive to scour
• Substances to modify pH or to affect performance or stability of other ingredients, acids for descaling or caustics to break down organic compounds
• Water softeners to counteract the effect of "hardness" ions on other ingredients
• oxidants (oxidizers) for bleaching, disinfection, and breaking down organic compounds
• Non-surfactant materials that keep dirt in suspension
• Enzymes to digest proteins, fats, or carbohydrates in stains or to modify fabric feel
• Ingredients that modify the foaming properties of the cleaning surfactants, to either stabilize or counteract foam
• Ingredients that affect the aesthetic properties, such as optical brighteners, fabric softeners, colors, perfumes, etc.
• Washing agents may contain soap for the purpose of reducing foam rather than cleaning fabric.

Types

There are several factors that dictate what compositions of detergent should be used, including the material to be cleaned, the apparatus to be used, and tolerance for and type of dirt. For instance, all of the following are used to clean glass. The sheer range of different detergents that can be used demonstrates the importance of context in the selection of an appropriate glass-cleaning agent:

• a chromic acid solution—to get glass very clean for certain precision-demanding purposes, namely in analytical chemistry
• a high-foaming mixture of surfactants with low skin irritation—for hand-washing of drink glasses in a sink or dishpan
• other surfactant-based compositions—for washing windows with a squeegee, followed by rinsing
• any of various non-foaming compositions—for glasses in a dishwashing machine
• an ammonia-containing solution—for cleaning windows with no additional dilution and no rinsing
• ethanol or methanol in Windshield washer fluid—used for a vehicle in motion, with no additional dilution.

Terminology

Sometimes the word detergent is used to distinguish a cleaning agent from soap (which is a compound produced through the saponification of a glyceride). During the early development of non-soap surfactants as commercial cleaning products, the term syndet, short for synthetic detergent was promoted to indicate the distinction, but never caught on very well. The term soapless soap also saw a brief vogue. There is no accurate term for detergents not made of soap other than soapless detergent or non-soap detergent.

It may be noted that plain water, if used for cleaning, is a detergent. Probably the most widely-used detergents other than water are soaps or mixtures composed chiefly of soaps. However, not all soaps have significant detergency and, although the words "detergent" and "soap" are sometimes used interchangeably, not every detergent is a soap.

The term detergent is sometimes used to refer to any surfactant, even when it is not used for cleaning. This terminology should be avoided as long as the term surfactant itself is available.

See also

• Biological detergent
• Household chemicals
• Laundry detergent
• Soap
• Organic Chemistry

External links

• About.com: How Do Detergents Clean
• US Patent 6472364: Detergent compositions or components

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia