Let’s Talk Detergent Foam

Q: Why is Liquinox not recommended for automated washer use?

A: It’s all about the foam. Liquinox® Critical Cleaning Liquid Detergent is a powerful emulsifier of organic and oily residues, and contains high-foaming surfactants.  These types of surfactants are very good at forming micelles which are aggregate structures that can trap oil and hydrophobic residues inside them to form an emulsion. Basically things that make strong emulsions also tend to form foam.

While making a mess may come to mind, there’s more at play. When detergents with high-foaming surfactants are used in automated washers, the foam tends to float on top of the circulating wash solution and when the wash cycle ends, the chamber of the washer is left filled with foam. This foam is made of surfactants and residues that may be trapped in the soap bubbles.  Since this foam carries over from wash cycle to rinse cycle, it will often will prevent complete rinsing in the washer.

So, for manual, soak, scrubbing and ultrasonic cleaning, Liquinox detergent is ideal. In fact, for manual, soak and ultrasonic cleaning, where foam in rinsing is less of an issue, any kind of foaming detergent generally will work better than a low foaming products. These also include:

• Alconox® Powdered Precision Cleaner
• Tergazyme® Enzyme-Active Powdered Detergent
• Citranox® Liquid Acid Cleaner and Detergent
• Detonox® Ultimate Precision Cleaner

However, in high agitation dishwasher and spray cleaning applications, low foaming detergents work better.

Therefore, in an automated washer, our detergents that end in “-jet” or otherwise low-foaming specified would be appropriate:

• Alcojet® Low Foaming Powdered Detergent
• Detojet® Low Foaming Liquid Detergent
• Detergent 8® Low-Foaming Ion-Free Detergent
• Luminox® Low-Foaming Neutral pH Liquid Detergent
• Solujet® Low-Foaming Phosphate-Free Liquid
• Tergajet® Low-Foaming Phosphate-Free Detergent
• Citrajet® Low-Foam Liquid Acid Cleaner/Rinse
• Keylajet® Low-foaming High Alkaline Liquid

To request any Alconox, Inc. detergents for free, please complete the questionnaire at Get Sample. For more information about any one of our Alconox, Inc. detergents, consult the technical bulletin for each product. Or click here to access each of our detergent’s Safety Data Sheets.

Do you have a critical cleaning question for the experts at Alconox, Inc.?  Search TechNotes to see if it’s been answered before or Ask Alconox.