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 fabrics pores and a low concentration in the surrounding water
(Excerpt) Read more at physicsworld.com ...
LOL!
I agree re the HE front loading washers are cr@p. They’re overpriced and the wash cycles take FOREVER. I’ve noticed front loaders are being phased out, newest models are now top loaders. YAY.
“micron-sized particles to diffuse out these micrometre-sized pores. “
In layman’s terms, that’s like trying to remove a 4 inch rubber ball buried deep in a 4 inch hole.
But they still haven’t solved the mystery of where lost socks go.....
I don’t know where the socks go. But my wife takes the right hand of my work gloves to run the vacuum cleaner to avoid static electricity. She doesn’t always put them back and I don’t know where they are. I have about 7 left-hand gloves and no right-hand gloves. I have never found an old right-hand glove. Where do they go?
Actually, yes. A standard wash cycle with detergent followed by a wash cycle without detergent results in much cleaner clothing. It also seems to decrease the wear on that clothing.
I stumbled upon this decades ago when looking for the most efficient way of truly rinsing laundry detergent out of my clothing. The additional detergent-less wash cycle not only removed residual laundry detergent, but it had unexpected benefits.
Of course, "water Nazis" will pop their gourd over this practice.
We have a 15-year old Whirlpool washer, and a 20-year old Wirlpool dryer. Excellent machines.
Two years ago we needed a new agitator for the washer. New parts were still available from Whirlpool. Last year we needed a new timer for the washer. Had to go to a used appliance dealer. He ordered a new timer from a wholesaler.
Used appliance dealer commented that 15 year and older appliances from good manufacturers like Whirlpool were built to last. New stuff, even Whirlpool, is junk by comparison.
Fabric softener kills microfiber towels used for cleaning.
I was a GE tech for 32 years.
Old top loads actually rinsed clothes.
Front loaders and HE top loads only slosh the clothes in a little bit of water.
It’s aliens. Ask yourself when was the last time you saw an alien with matching socks?
I’m disappointed in this article. I thought it was going to say where all my missing socks are.
Side loaders are hugely more efficient in industrial laundries. The fall of the clothes into the liquid provides agitation of the clothes at no cost because gravity provides the force.
However consumer washers are too small for that effect to work! Falling six inches just doesn’t make it.
Amazing how stupid engineers can be if management pays them enough.
It's hard enough to move all that manufacturing to Mexico. You want the products to WORK, too?
Not a problem if you beat the clothes on a rock with a rock by the stream.
I was wondering if it would solve the question of how socks I have never seen before get into the laundry.
And thats all any of us need to know.
Are you right about that! It is the reason the wife and I sold our new Maytag HE washers a couple of years ago and bought used top loaders. What a difference.
Call me when they haven’t solved the REAL laundry puzzle what does the drier do with all those single socks that disappear in it?
The socks are probably where my right-handed work gloves are.
And your 1/2 inch sockets and wrenches.
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