ABSTRACT
I. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 484 II. Economics ............................................................................................................. 487
A. Business Environment ............................................................................... 487 B. Efficiency Breakthroughs .......................................................................... 488 C. More Cost-Effective Design Tools............................................................ 491
1. Predictive High-Throughput Screening and Computational Modeling .................................................................................... 491
2. Formulation Work Process-Virtual Formulation..................... 492 3. Cross Fertilization and Importation of Solutions from
Other Industries.......................................................................... 493 III. Consumer Trends-Simplicity and Enhanced Sensory Experiences................... 493 IV. Innovations in Appliances ..................................................................................... 497 V. Compatibility and Complementarity-Innovations in Textiles and
Home Hard Surfaces ............................................................................................. 499 A. Hard Surfaces Innovations ........................................................................ 499 B. Textile Innovations .................................................................................... 502
1. What Functional Textiles and Hard Surfaces Imply for Detergents.... 503 2. Other Textile Trends ............................................................................. 503
VI. Innovations in Devices and Substrates-Holistic Solutions ................................ 504 VII. Environmental and Regulatory Considerations .................................................... 505
A. New Chemical Regulations....................................................................... 505 B. Sustainability-Important Design Themes for Detergents ...................... 507 C. Cool Water Performance ........................................................................... 508 D. More Efficient Rinse Processes ................................................................ 510
VIII. Miscellaneous Design Directions ........................................................................ 511 A. “Reinvented” Liquid Detergents ............................................................... 511 B. Home Dry Cleaning .................................................................................. 514 C. Partitioned/Staged Chemistry.................................................................... 515 D. Advances in Catalytic Chemistry ............................................................. 515
References ....................................................................................................................... 517
I. INTRODUCTION
What does the future look like for detergent formulations? From a review of the patent literature, inventors and formulators have been prolific. Just considering laundry detergent patent filings alone from 1998 to 2003 from the major manufacturers, there were over 3000 patent filings; categorized into the conventional “building block” ingredient categories, these are approximately as summarized in Table 1.
