Tackling Tough Soils

Published

November 18, 2021

Tackling tough soils requires chemistry that can achieve results with a variety of stain types, fabrics, and wash environments.When an oily stain, like motor oil, comes into contact with polyester fabric, the attraction is strong and challenging to break. A polymer like Sokalan® HP 22G works to form a microfilm on fabrics to repel and disperse oily soils in water while preventing the re-deposition of the oil on the fabric. As shown below, including a small amount of Sokalan HP 22G in a detergent formula dramatically increases the effectiveness of removing motor oil from polyester.

To find the ideal formulation for an On-Premise Laundry (OPL) detergent that could handle a range of stains from blood, through motor oil, to makeup, BASF created two fully-built test formulations that incorporated varying amounts of different ingredients including Lutensol® TDA-9, Lutensol A65N and Trilon® M. Our test formulations outperformed the industry benchmarks for both cleaning of stains and anti-redeposition of soil on fabric.

For optimal cleaning in a tunnel washer, we have provided high performing solutions for a suds detergent that works on a range of stains. We discovered that a Trilon M- based break formula combined with Inoterra® DWE (a nonionic surfactant) is as effective as a phosphate-based detergent. The below chart shows how the cleaning performance of this formula is effective at both 120⁰F and 160⁰F.