Cleaning compositions comprising alkoxylated polyalkyleneimines and sulfonate group-containing copolymers

Abstract

A cleaning composition containing an alkoxylated polyalkyleneimine and a sulfonate group-containing copolymer is provided, which exhibits significant improved whiteness maintenance benefit when used to treat fabrics.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention is in the field of cleaning compositions.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]An important purpose of detergents and / or cleaning compositions is to remove soils and stains from fabrics to achieve consumer perceivable cleaning benefit. The ability of a particular detergent or cleaning composition to remove soils and stains is determined not only by the surfactant activity level in the composition, but also by many others factors.[0003]For example, the wash water used with detergents or cleaning compositions may contain various metal ions (e.g., calcium or magnsium ions) that can chemically combine with surfactants in the wash to form insoluble precipitates, which not only render the surfactant ineffective for soil / stain remval, but also form scums that further soil the fabric surface. Therefore, water with a higher concentration of metal ions (i.e., hard water) presents a particularly challenging wash condition. This challenge is further ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]The present invention relates to a cleaning composition, preferably a laundry detergent composition and more preferably a liquid laundry detergent composition, which contains one or more alkoxylated polyalkyleneimines in combination with a sulfonate group-containing copolymer. It is a surprising and unexpected discovery of the present invention that when a sulfonate group-containing copolymer is combined with one or more alkoxylated polyalkyleneimines in a cleaning composition, the resulting cleaning composition exhibits significant improvement in its cleaning performance, more specifically its whiteness maintenance benefit, in comparison with compositions containing either the sulfonate group-containing copolymer alone or the one or more alkoxylated polyalkyleneimines alone.

Problems solved by technology

For example, the wash water used with detergents or cleaning compositions may contain various metal ions (e.g., calcium or magnsium ions) that can chemically combine with surfactants in the wash to form insoluble precipitates, which not only render the surfactant ineffective for soil / stain remval, but also form scums that further soil the fabric surface.

Therefore, water with a higher concentration of metal ions (i.e., hard water) presents a particularly challenging wash condition.

This brings additional challenges because re-used wash water tends to have harder (i.e., high concentrations of metal ions) and increased levels of soil contaminants, and elimination of phosphate and / or zeolite builder and reduction of total surfactant content in the detergent or cleaning compositions may lead to significant reduction in the cleaning performance.

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