Posted on 04/04/2018 8:05:57 PM PDT by MtnClimber
A fresh water rinse is just as important as washing in detergent for getting your clothes clean, according to physicists in the US and the UK. They claim that the rinse cycle plays a key role in removing dirt from deep within textiles, by setting up chemical and electrolyte gradients that draw it out. This could lead to the development of more efficient and environmentally friendly washing machines, they add.
Washing machines wash clothes with water mixed with detergent and then rinse them with fresh water before finally spinning them. Washing detergents are surfactants, compounds that lower the surface tension between liquids and other substances, making it easier for them to mix. When washing clothes, they help the water mix with and loosen dirt on the fabric. Conventional understanding is that rinsing then flushes the fabric and washes the dirt away.
Stagnant cores
But, there is a problem with this idea. In most fabrics there are tiny pores that do not allow any significant fluid flow inside them. According to Sangwoo Shin at the University of Hawaii, Patrick Warren of Unilever in the UK and Howard Stone of Princeton University, it should take several hours for micron-sized particles to diffuse out these micrometre-sized pores. Yet significant numbers of particles do leave these pores on much faster time scales. The question as to how this is possible is known in the washing industry as the “stagnant core problem”.
Looking at this problem, the trio noted that when detergent-saturated fabric is exposed to fresh water the surfactant molecules rapidly move out of the stagnant core. They hypothesized that the surfactant gradient established when the fabric is rinsed – with a high concentration of surfactant within the fabric’s pores and a low concentration in the surrounding water –
(Excerpt) Read more at physicsworld.com ...
Will my wife read this.......no.
I’ll sleep much better now that that’s been solved.
I have never thought about doing my laundry to this depth of detail. We haven’t even broached the touchy topic of Fabric Rinse yet!
Thank God I can die knowing that this problem is solved.
I’ll never look at a clean sheet in the same way again.
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SO...... if you want your clothes clean , then you need to wash them once with detergent, and then wash them again without detergent.
These “studies” cost us...how much?
I always double rinse my laundry. Well, not the towels or dishcloths, or throw rugs, but everything else.
I was hoping this was going to solve the question of the disappearing socks.
Of course, your clothes would come clean if you were able to use phosphates, but that has been outlawed.
Then there is the fact that the box of detergent contains only about 2% detergent. The rest is filler (ground up dog bones). That’s why you have to buy fabric softener. To get the filler out.
Or maybe the rinse cycle needs to be longer.
All I know is the old school upright washers work, and the new HE front loaders do not.
And that’s all any of us need to know.
That’s a good point, Mtnclimber - maybe cloths should be soaked in mild detergent-laced water for 24 hours prior to washing ...
It took a team of scientists to figure this out.
I don’t understand the point of this article, of course you have to rinse soapy laundry with fresh water!!! What are you going to do, NOT rinse your laundry? LOL
I thought they finaly solved the missing sock mystery,,,,
I’d heard that Tide Pods fix this, but that rat faced David Hogg ate them all.
Best post so far. :-)
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You’ll never see the study costs in your Unilever product purchases. But you might find your income tax contribution buriedmin the Omnibus bill under the section “Laundry Detergent, Ring Around the Collar - Removal via Rinsing Action of Micrometer Particles” subsection.
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