Detergents do not have an ancient history, unlike the soaps. The first appearance of the detergent was back in 1916. This was the era of World War l. In the year 1916 when the country of Germany became deficient on the sources of fats and oils, they came up with the idea of artificial surfactants.
The detergents or the artificial surfactant is a non soap product which has a cleansing action on different types of organic matter stand on clothes and other fabric materials. The need for detergents also aroused from the fact that the soap could not clean properly the stains with alkali salts in the solution. As the soap always formed a curd type of material on the stain rather removing it.
Preparation of detergents
The earliest detergents synthetically manufactured were short chained alkyl naphthalene sulfonate. But, later it was found that this synthesized detergent did not have much of a cleansing effect on the stains. Thus, with some improved properties, these detergents are used to date. In late 1920 and 1930, straight-chainedalcohols were undergone through the process of elimination to produce the straight-chained detergents. During the same period, the long-chained alkyl and aryl culminated benzene synthetic detergents came into being. These synthetic detergents had the aromatic nucleus.
Now in the modern world, the detergent manufacturers are getting more oriented towards the safety of the people and the environment. Along, with the cleansing effects, the detergents are expected to be having soft effects on the users. This is because the detergents generally have rough cleansing effects and may sometimes also harm the skin of the one in contact with them.
Working of detergents
The detergents or the surfactants as the name suggests have some sort of surface tension in them. The detergent has a simple work of just helping the water molecules to wet the dirt more efficiently. The artificial detergents have two parts one is the water part and the other is the detergent part while cleaning the dirt or organic matter. The detergent head bonds with the organic dirt with its water part is still intact. The water part then extracts the dirt by further breaking it into smaller pieces. Thus, it removes the dirt from the fabric by breaking into smaller pieces.
Types of detergents
There are different types of detergents available in the market of the modern era. According to different people’s different needs, these detergents help to users. Some of the detergents are as follow:
- Cake detergents
- Powder detergent
- Liquid detergent
- Phosphate free detergents
- Enzyme detergents
- Pre-soak detergents
- Hand wash detergents