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Stimuli-connective surfactant systems for residue-free local soil removal from textile materials

IGF 19847 N

Cleaning and care of textile floor coverings in the object area represent an economically important market for the cleaning service sector. In order to increase service life and to maintain visual appearance of textile floor coverings, a frequent maintenance cleaning (usually daily) by professional cleaning service providers is necessary.

Highly efficient maintenance cleaning leads to less frequent extensive cleaning procedures (intermediate and basic cleaning). In addition to the removal of particulate contamination by means of suction (vacuuming, brush cleaning), maintenance cleaning also includes treatment of non-suctionable local soiling.

Treatment of local soiling involves a great deal of effort, as soiling usually exists and adheres deep in the fibre interspaces of the wear layer. In addition, the use of stain-removers is necessary to detach obstinate soiling, which then have to be removed from textile floor covering at great expense.

An economical process for the residue-free removal of local soiling from textile floor coverings using stimuli-connective surfactant systems (network-forming, polymerizable surfactants and liquid phase) was therefore developed. Such stimuli-connective surfactant systems change their cross-linking state depending on external stimuli (mechanical stress, thermal treatment).

As a result, they completely wet and penetrate the wear layer of textile floor coverings during application (weakly physical cross-linked state due to mechanical stress during application) and show good adhesion during application (strongly physical cross-linked state due to elimination of mechanical stress after application).

Through polymerization initiated at the surface, they can then be chemically crosslinked under diffusion-controlled separation and removed from the surface of the floor covering as a solid film by low mechanical stress (manually or by suction) without leaving any residues (chemically crosslinked state by thermal treatment).

Impurities detached from stimuli-connective surfactant systems are incorporated into the network of surfactant systems due to physicochemical interactions. In diffusion-controlled separation process, the embedded soiling is removed from the wear layer together with the stimuli-connective surfactant system.

The project results provide cleaning service enterprises with an efficient process for residue-free removal of local soiling, which leads to reduced personnel requirements for local removal of soiling and thus to savings in the cleaning of textile floor coverings. The removal of local soiling is also of central importance in textile processing, so that the textile care industry also benefits from the results.

The research report is available on request from FRT.

The IGF-pro­ject 19847 N of the re­search as­so­ci­a­tion Europäische Forschungs­ge­mein­schaft Reini­gungs- und Hy­gien­etech­nolo­gie e.V., Cam­pus Ficht­en­hain 11, 47807 Krefeld, was sup­port­ed via the AiF with­in the fund­ing pro­gram „In­dus­trielle Gemein­schafts­forschung und -en­twick­lung (IGF)“ by the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and Cli­mate Ac­tion due to a de­ci­sion of the Ger­man Par­lia­ment.