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The effects of water hardness level on washing quality using commercial laundry detergents
Author(s) -
BROWN DONNA M.,
CAMERON BRUCE A.,
MEYER SONYA S.,
UMBER JO J.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of consumer studies and home economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 0309-3891
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-6431.1991.tb00660.x
Subject(s) - laundry , hard water , pulmonary surfactant , soft water , phosphate , pulp and paper industry , environmental science , chemistry , waste management , organic chemistry , biochemistry , engineering
The water hardnesses were determined for 10 samples of water. A wide variation of water hardnesses were found ranging from very soft to very hard. The effectiveness of six commercial laundry detergents of different formulations were evaluated. The detergent containing a non‐ionic surfactant with a phosphate builder was found to give the best whiteness results, regardless of water hardness. Because of the possible environmental problems associated with the use of phosphates, consumers may wish to select the next most effective detergent formulation, which varied between water samples.