Typical I&I applications
- Hospital, school, restaurant, office and industrial facility cleaning
- Metal and electronics cleaning
- Commercial window cleaning
- Hard floor and surface cleaners
- Commercial dishwashing
- Aircraft cleaning
- Dry cleaning
- Municipal and street cleaning
The I&I cleaning sector is a highly diversified and growing market thanks to recurring nature of the products and services and increasing governmental and regulatory requirements for hygiene and cleanliness. One of the key drivers is the requirement for effective, eco-friendly and less labour-intensive cleaning products, in which surfactants act as detergents, wetting agents, foaming agents, emulsifiers and dispersants.
Big consumers of I&I surfactant-based cleaning products include food and beverage processing plants, the automotive and transportation industry, cleaning companies and building service contractors, restaurants and hospitality industries, provincial authorities, retailers (supermarkets), hospitals, schools and other commercial facilities.
They are also widely used in commercial dish and glass washing in pubs, restaurants and canteens while in metal cleaning they free metal surfaces of oxide layers and fats, which is important for coating or electroplating to obtain corrosion-resistant coatings.
In the beverage industry the high-speed washing of bottles, more than 100,000 per hour and without any foam, would be unthinkable without surfactants. Their wetting action means that cleaning is more effective, labels peel off easily, no water remains in the cleaned bottles and they shine brightly.
- See also:
- Personal Care
- Health Care