I am working with dirty laundry water which has detergent in it. I need to disable/inactivate the surfactants in the detergent, such that they do not keep the dirt in suspension anymore. How do I do this?
It properly depends a bit on the type of detergent but for sulphonic acid detergents like LAS I expect adding a Na or Ca salt would have that effect. Some other types of detergents could lose their effect if you decrease pH to below their pKa.
You need to destabilize the particles and droplets stabilized by surfactants leading to electrostatic and or steric stabilization.
So question is partly answered by Henrik. Adding Na salt to LAS - in principle yes but not feasible for wastewater treatment (use of high dosages resulting in water high in electrolyte).
Usual approach for wastewater treatment is use of coagulants (iron and aluminium salts, lime) or flocculants (usually cationic polyelectrolytes).
You could use a membrane filter with an appropriate cut-off just above the detergent monomer size. If you force the dirty water through the membrane the micelles will be forced to disassemble in order to pass. I expect you will have some problems with membrane fouling, but an hydrophilic inorganic membrane might work.
The role of calcium ions in precipitating soaps is very well known. For other anionic surfactants, precipitation may occur, in a certain concentration range, by adding cationic surfactant, but, except dilution below the cmc (no micellar solubilization), I cannot find a general means to disable a surfactant.