Detergency by surfactant/cosurfactant systems

The influence of amphiphilic additives on phase transitions and detergency of nonionic surfactant was examined to solve low temperature detergency problems and to reduce the amount of surfactants necessary to achieve good cleaning results. Optimum detergency correlates to the formation of the lamellar liquid crystalline L α ‐phase and to the intermediate maximum of the phase‐inversion temperature curves. Medium chain alkanols showed as optimum additives which improved low temperature detergency and allowed a reduction of the amount of surfactants necessary. However, fatty acids were not effective, and low degree ethoxylates of fatty alcohols were less effective cosurfactants. The interrelations found could be transferred to solve practical washing problems.