Development of a Measure for Rinse Performance in Washing Machines

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Summary

In 2002 a working group of EL15/4 was formed to progress the development of a rinse performance test for clothes washers. Late in 2002 a preliminary test program was developed to test three alternative methods of measurement:

Conductivity
Alkalinity
UV spectrophotometry

The main focus of the work was to be on UV spectrophotometry. This test uses UV spectrophotometry measurement of the concentration of sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) in the aqueous liquor held in the wet load on completion of the program. SDBS is the surfactant in the AS/NZS 2040.1 wash performance reference detergent.

The test program contained 5 main components as follows:

Development of a test procedure for measuring SDBS concentrations.
Verification tests on principal supplied samples.
Trial rinse performance tests.
Comparative tests using conductivity and alkalinity measurements.
Review of available equipment for measuring SDBS concentration.

This page last modified 02 February 2009