Surfactants

Surfactant – a word you may have heard of, but what are they really?, well in actual fact

without surfactants you would not be able to clean effectively. Now this is the tricky bit - have you ever wondered how some insects like the pond-skater sit or skate across the surface of the water. It’s not the same as floating, because when you float you are semi-submerged under water and not sitting on the water’s surface. Well, in actual fact the pond-skater sits on a barrier, known as surface tension, between the air and the water. The image above shows a pond skater sitting on the water using surface tension. It is this tension which needs to be broken down so that the cleaning agents in the Ecover Washing Powder can get to work – and how is this done? It’s the surfactant! Click here to take a look for yourself. Here you can see a drawing pin sitting on the surface of the water (surface tension) – and by adding a few droplets of surfactant, the surface tension is broken down and the pin sinks! The problem with many surfactants is after your cycle has finished and the waste enters the water system. If you take frogs for example, surfactants will interfere with the protective coating from their skin with dire consequences, likewise for the sensitive gills from which fish depend for their oxygen uptake. So like all our ingredients, we make sure we use surfactants that biodegrade fast enough so the frogs and surfactants never meet.