The pursuit of hygiene exists from the beginning of mankind. Hygiene eventually is an important aspect of everyday life. The hygienic approach primarily consists in maintaining the health. In addition to the general cleaning effects scent and improved cleaning power of the raw material compositions have also come under scrutiny due to extended possibilities. Cleaning power optimization is particularly characterized by the ability to extend a hygienically clean state and an improvement of the degree of cleaning.
Nowadays hygiene can be divided into the fields of body, surface and textile hygiene. The latter is divided into applications depending on textile material and color. At least since the Nineties of the 20th century the consumer's awareness has been raised of ecological cleaning. In this regard, it is desirable to maintain the advantages of conventional washing detergents, on the one hand, and to find further innovative and ecologically feasible product solutions, on the other hand.
With the beginning of industrial production, laundry detergents have been realized as powders. This very day, a powder laundry detergent consists of a mixture of different washing active substances.
With the progress during the development of laundry detergents enzymes and other new surfactant compositions entered this market segment. In addition to the substances necessary for cleaning large amounts of filler material are added nowadays. Accordingly, no change of the consumer's dosing behavior was necessary. First attempts to omit filler material resulted in an overdosing of the surfactants due to the application the users were used to.
Then liquid washing detergents were introduced which could be dosed residue-free and, thus, offered a physical alternative to the mixture of solids of laundry detergents. However, up to now liquid washing detergents do not accomplish the cleaning level of a heavy-duty laundry detergent (i.e., a mixture of solids). This is due to the fact that a liquid washing detergent is limited to liquid components or components which are well soluble in water. The essential substances missing in a liquid washing detergent are the zeolites. The latter support dirt adsorption and brightening/color fastness during the application.
A current product trend is the simplified way of portioning the washing detergent. This can be achieved, on the one hand, by packing a liquid washing detergent in small polymer pouches up to multi chamber systems. However, the problem of the missing zeolite mentioned above still persists. Another physical modification of the washing detergent consists in mixing a washing detergent with a fatty alcohol in order to achieve desired forms. Both product concepts, however, describe a one-phase product which can only be differentiated by way of its portioning.
As disclosed in DE 10 2010 060 126 A1, a multi-phase product can be provided. The laundry detergent wipe disclosed therein is characterized by combining a carrier material with an impregnating liquid (two-phase product). However, in this case the disadvantage of the missing zeolite still persists.
Accordingly, it is the object of the present invention to provide a laundry detergent wipe as an alternative to a mixture of solids which permits the contribution of additives such as zeolites in order to obtain all features of a heavy-duty laundry detergent.
In order to obtain an optimal application of the inventive product it is advantageous, as regards the dispersion and the active substances contained therein, to achieve a homogeneous distribution of the dispersion across the substrate.
In the prior art the following methods for manufacturing wet wipes have been used:                1. Impregnation by means of a moistening rod, wherein the moistening is achieved by direct contact with the moistening rod.        2. Impregnation by means of a moistening rod, wherein the substrate is moistened by spraying.        3. Impregnation by means of a moistening trough, wherein the substrate is moistened by immersion.        
However, these methods would not result in a homogeneous distribution of the washing active substances and the solid components, resp., on the substrate as can be obtained from FIG. 1.
Accordingly, it is a further object of the present invention to provide a laundry detergent wipe with a homogeneous distribution of the washing active substances and the solid components, resp., across the substrate and a method for manufacturing same in order to achieve an improved distribution of the active substances and, thus, an improved cleaning power of the laundry detergent wipe.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds