You would like to have a protective layer on your laundry after washing so that it does not get dirty again immediately?
Polymers in detergents fulfil various important functions and often make the special effect of a detergent possible.
Examples:
- Defoamers: In electric washing machines, the use of surfactants for cleaning generates foam. If a high amount of detergent is dosed, this can lead to high foaming and spilling of the water from the washing machine. In order to control foaming, defoamers are added.
- Dye Transfer Inhibitors: They help to keep leached dye stable in wash liquor and prevent dye re-deposition on other textiles and color staining. Typical use of DTIs is in color detergents.
- Optical brightener: Optical brightener are used in products for white garnments to enhance the brightness by flourescence to compensate yellowing and make textiles whiter.
- Soil release polymers: Absorb on fibers during washing and build a protective layer. In case of new soiling with oily stains, the removal of stain is strongly improved.
We use polymers for specific purposes in detergents, such as anti-redeposition agents, defoamers, dye transfer inhibitors,opacifiers, performance polymers or soil release polymers. Many polymers are well biodegradable, but some unfortunately are not. As our product development is constantly striving to improve our formulas and their environmental footprint, we are working to replace polymers with more biodegradable ones if they can provide similar performance.