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Sodium carbonate and surfactant mixture
Dear all,
I prepared simple liquid water softener and prewash mixture which contains water, sodium carbonate and surfactant. I chose lauryl glucoside because I think there is no chemical reaction in this solution. Am I right or should I use different surfactant?
I also think it’s not necessary to preserve this mixture.Thank you for your advice.
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4 Replies
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Alkylbenzene sulfonates are the surfactants of choice in laundry products. The detersive properties of most other types is normally much inferior to ABS.
A problem you will most likely encounter if you are marketing this as a liquid is precipitation/separation of the surfactant if the concentration of the carbonate is high.
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Thank you for your comment johnb.
The concentration is high, I used 15-25 % of the carbonate. The reason I chose lauryl glucoside is separation of the other surfactants. The solution is homogenous, but I am not sure if it will change.
Other surfactants were precipitated or separated after few hours. -
The precipitation/separation you are seeing is the surfactant being “salted out” by the high ion concentration.
There should be a better reason than avoiding precipitation qualify a particular surfactant to be used in a product.
Lauryl glucoside has very poor detersive power in comparison to ABS. If this is not of a concern to you then there is little reason for it to be present. Merely sell a sodium carbonate solution.
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if this is a pre-wash soak similar to Woolite you can use sodium sesqicarbonate with a mixture of LAS and nonionic alcohol ethoxylate)I think 1:1 ratio) which will provide PH of 7-8.You may need a hydrtrope to keep sesqicarbonate in solution but have a go at it.
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