All the detergents are not responsible for washing clothes but all they do is to make the tap water do it by changing the surface tension of it. If we can reformulate(not separate) the molecular formulation of the tap water then the surface tension of the tap water changes and the water will able to wash smoothly and environmentally safely.
Dear Ahmed,
I do not agree with your statement that laundry products only work because of the water they contain. Detergents are indeed responsible for making the fabric of clothing better accessible to water by lowering the surface tension. But detergents are also important to disperse dirt particles, colorants, grease and proteins. Next to that laundry agents use also enzymes to breakdown grease, fat and proteins. And special color catchers are used to absorb dyes coming from our colored laundry. Laundry agents are thus quite complex and contain a multitude of components each for specific tasks and types of foulants.
Tap water is rich in Calcium ions, which may precipitate with oppositely charged species, causing additional fouling. Thus removing these ions (normally done in laundry detergents by the addition of sequesterants) may improve the washing process but may speed up the loss of dye from the fabric. Anyway, if we make water purer, the surface tension goes up and not down. Tap water is between 65 and 72.8 mN/m, whereas demineralized water is 70-72.8 mN/m. Surface tension is an intrinsic property of water, only adding substances to make mixtures or solutions will lower surface tension.
An envirnmentally safe approach to laundry cleaning would be to use biodegradable, or green, detergents. One cannot alter water to have a lower surface tension to my knowledge. And if so, I would love to hear about this!
Kind regards, Leo
Dear/Leo Vleugels
Thanks as a matter of fact the tap water consists of two parts HO and H. If we could reformulate the two parts of water (i mean not separate ) in a position where the water can change its capability to specific characteristics the result is to have tap water with new function with HO which has the capability to treat with dirty whats ever its kind and the other part (H) that is responsible for cleaning the clothes smoothly and safely. Chemically the part (HO)prefers ( loves ) to unit with dirty directly rather than unit with (H) .However, the clue is to find the mechanism that can re position the two atoms of water to be in a new position making the tap water facing the dirty and cleaning clothes.
Regards
Detergents lower surface tension but that is not how they work to clean clothes. Detergents have an oil liking part that adsorbs oils and a water liking part that disperses that oil in water. Water can disproportionate to ions OH- and H3O+ but neither one likes oil, they both like water. Water does not do the cleaning of the oils from clothes, it is just a medium for the detergent.
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