Evaluation of Surfactant Detergency using Statistical Analysis

In this article the use of statistical analysis to determine the efficiency of surfactants as washing agents is presented. Two types of surfactants of different ion activities, three different types of fabrics, and four different types of soil — tea, coffee, red wine, and charcoal — were used for this research. The application of soil to fabric samples was carried out with the pad-dry method. The washing of all the soiled samples was carried out in a Launder-Ometer using the standard method at two temperatures, 40 and 60°C. A colorimetric evaluation according to a CIELAB system was used for all the samples, where the ΔE* values between the washed and unwashed samples, as well as between the washed and unsoiled samples, represent the criteria for the soil removal efficiency. A multi-factorial analysis of variance was used to explain the effects of the surfactant ionic activity, the fabric type, and the soil type on the efficiency of the surfactants as detergents. The results revealed that the efficiency of both studied anionic and non-ionic surfactants are similar when removing the tea, coffee, or wine soils, but when removing the charcoal soil the non-ionic surfactant proved to be more efficient. The surfactant detergency was not significantly improved when the temperature was increased from 40 to 60°C.