History of Detergents

HISTORY OF DETERGENTS
When talking about the history of detergents, there is no specific date that can be designated to
its origination, because the fact is that personal hygiene began with the beginning of human
civilization. In fact, water is considered to be the oldest detergent ever used to clean off the mud
accumulated on the human body and whatever little clothes they did wear.
The chemistry of soap manufacturing stayed essentially the same until 1916, when the first
synthetic detergent was developed in Germany in response to a World War I-related shortage of
fats for making soap.
Known today simply as detergents, synthetic detergents are non-soap washing and cleaning
products that are "synthesized" or put together chemically from a variety of raw materials. The
discovery of detergents was also driven by the need for a cleaning agent that, unlike soap, would
not combine with the mineral salts in water to form an insoluble substance known as soap curd.
Brief summary of important inventions over the years of the history of detergents.
1950s
Liquid laundry, hand dishwashing and all-purpose cleaning products
 Automatic dishwasher powders

 Detergent with oxygen bleach
 Fabric softeners (rinse-cycle added)
1960s
 Laundry powders with enzymes

 Prewash soil and stain removers
 Enzyme pre-soaks
1970s
 Fabric softeners (sheets and wash-cycle added)

 Multifunctional products (e.g., detergent with fabric softener)
 Liquid hand soaps
1980s
 Automatic dishwasher liquids

 Detergents for cooler water washing
 Concentrated laundry powders
1990s
 Ultra (super concentrated) powder and liquid detergents

 Automatic dishwasher gels
 Ultra fabric softeners
 Laundry and cleaning product refills
Definition
Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension (or interfacial tension) between two
liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act
as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents, and dispersants.
Soaps and detergents are made from long molecules that contain a head and tail. These
molecules are called surfactants; the diagram below represents a surfactant molecule.
The head of the molecule is attracted to water (hydrophilic) and the tail is attracted to grease and
dirt (hydrophobic). When the detergent molecules meet grease on clothes, the tails are drawn into
the grease but the heads still sit in the water.
The attractive forces between the head groups and the water are so strong that the grease is lifted
away from the surface. The blob of grease is now completely surrounded by detergent molecules
and is broken into smaller pieces which are washed away by the water.
The detergent molecules also help to make the washing process more effective by reducing
the surface tension of the water. Surface tension is the force which helps a blob of water on a
surface hold its shape and not spread out. The surfactant molecules of the detergent break apart
these forces and make water behave, well, wetter!
Raw materials:
Fatty alcohols are important raw materials for anionic synthetic detergents.
Among synthetic detergents, commonly referred to as syndets, anionic-active types are the most
important. The molecule of an anionic-active synthetic detergent is a long carbon chain to which a sulfo
group (−SO3) is attached, forming the negatively charged (anionic) part. This carbon chain must be so
structured that a sulfo group can be attached easily by industrial processes (sulfonation), which may
employ sulfuric acid, oleum (fuming sulfuric acid), gaseous sulfur trioxide, or chlorosulfonic acid.
The first fatty alcohols used in production of synthetic detergents were derived from body oil of
the sperm or bottlenose whale (sperm oil). Efforts soon followed to derive these materials from
the less expensive triglycerides (coconut and palm-kernel oils and tallow).
When the chemical processing industry developed high-pressure hydrogenation and oil-
hardening processes for natural oils, detergent manufacturers began to adopt these methods for
reduction of coconut oil, palm-kernel oil, and other oils into fatty alcohols.
Synthetic fatty alcohols have been produced from ethylene; the process, known as the Alfol
process, employs diethylaluminum hydride.
Soon after World War II, another raw material, alkylbenzene, became available in huge
quantities. Today it is the most important raw material for synthetic detergent production.
The alkyl molecular group has in the past usually been C12H24 (tetrapropylene) obtained from
the petrochemical gas propylene. This molecular group is attached to benzene by a reaction
called alkylation, with various catalysts, to form the alkylbenzene. By sulfonation, alkylbenzene
sulfonate is produced; marketed in powder and liquid form, it has excellent detergent and
cleaning properties and produces high foam.

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HISTORY OF DETERGENTS

 Automatic dishwasher powders

 Laundry powders with enzymes

 Fabric softeners (sheets and wash-cycle added)

 Automatic dishwasher liquids

 Ultra (super concentrated) powder and liquid detergents

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