JPH06279792A - Production of high-bulk-density synthetic granular detergent - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a good-flow synthetic granular detergent with a high efficiency while suppressing the formation of fine particles by a disintegration process which can obviate a drying process. CONSTITUTION:The detergent having a bulk density of 0.6g/cc or above is produced by a process comprising disintegrating a mixture of solid substances as the detergent components and granulating the disintegrated substances, which process comprises adjusting the water content of said mixture to 5-15wt.% before disintegration and disintegrating it for a treatment time of 0.5-10sec while feeding cold air at 20 deg.C or below at a rate of 0.01-5m<3>/kg of the mixture to be disintegrated in the presence of a water-insoluble or difficultly water-soluble fine powder of a particle diameter of 10mum or below.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for producing a high bulk density synthetic granular detergent composition by crushing and granulating detergent solids.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art At present, granular detergents are mainly produced by a spray drying method. In the spray drying method, a detergent component such as a surfactant or a builder is mixed with added water to obtain a water content of 35 to 5
After making the slurry into 0 wt%, the slurry is heated and sprayed into the heating space of the spray drying tower to obtain a water content of 5 to 10 wt.
%, And a bead-shaped hollow particle having a bulk density of about 0.3 g / cc. According to this method, a hollow granular detergent having excellent solubility can be obtained, but it is 30-40% by drying.
Since it is necessary to remove the water content, there is a problem that a large amount of heat energy is consumed, and the manufacturing facility becomes large-scaled, and a large capital investment is required. further,
There are restrictions on the production of detergents with a high content of surfactants or the use of heat-sensitive substances such as nonionic surfactants that volatilize or decompose with heat, and dust easily occurs due to fine powder. However, it had drawbacks such as difficulty in obtaining completely dust-free products.

As a method for producing a granular detergent without a drying step, Japanese Patent Publication No. 40-9415 discloses that an inorganic builder that absorbs water to form hydrous crystals and a liquid or pasty surfactant are used as water. It has been reported that a method of kneading and kneading in the presence of the above, fixing the water as water of crystallization of an inorganic builder to solidify, and then crushing. However, in this method, since the material hardness is too large at the time of pulverization, fine powder is liable to be generated and there is a problem of dust generation and a decrease in yield.
The solidification also requires a long time of 10 hours or more, which is not suitable for industrial production.

Further, Japanese Patent Publication No. 46-7586 proposes a method of agglomerating and granulating using a melt of an alkali salt of metaborate as a binder, but this method is not suitable for large-scale processing, and it is not suitable for 60-90 ° C. The production efficiency is poor because it requires 4 hours of treatment. Furthermore, JP-A-49-74703 reports a method of granulating with a Marumerizer, but this method is wet granulation of powder, and the uniformity of the components of each obtained particle is lacking.

[0005]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to obtain a high bulk density synthetic granular detergent with high yield and good fluidity by preventing dust generation by crushing and granulating.

[0006]

In the method for producing a high bulk density synthetic granular detergent of the present invention, when crushing and granulating a mixed solid of a detergent component, moisture in the mixed solid before crushing treatment is used. The amount is adjusted to 5 to 15% by weight, and in the presence of water-insoluble or sparingly soluble fine powder having a particle size of 10 μm or less, cold air at 20 ° C. or less is crushed to 0.01 to 5 m with respect to the mixed solid matter.
^While being supplied at a rate of ³ / kg, the crushing treatment is performed for a treatment time of 0.5 to 10 seconds to obtain a granular detergent having a bulk density of 0.6 g / cc or more.

[0007]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention will be described in more detail below. In the present invention, a solid mixture of synthetic detergent components is used as a crushing raw material. This mixed solid is obtained by previously intimately mixing the detergent raw materials with a kneader or the like to form pellets or lumps. At this time, it is necessary to adjust the amount of water in the obtained mixed solid material to 5 to 15 wt%, and preferably 8 to 12 wt%. The resulting solid has a mochi-like or harder quality. If the water content in the mixed solid is less than 5 wt%, the granular distribution obtained will be wide even if stored in a state where it is not crystallized by detergent components such as surfactants and builders (total water content = free water content <5%). In particular, a large amount of fine particles causes a dusting problem and reduces the yield. On the other hand, the water content is 15w
If it exceeds t%, excess free water is crystallized and made into a state suitable for disintegration, so that it is not suitable as an industrialized process such as requiring a long aging as in the prior art,
If the crystallization is insufficient, the crushing becomes difficult and the lumps are aggregated, and finally the crusher becomes overloaded and the crushing becomes impossible. As described above, the water content in the mixed solid matter before crushing should be adjusted to 5 to 15%, and the free water in the water content should be adjusted to 5 to 12%.

Conventional components are used as the synthetic detergent component in the present invention. Examples thereof include anionic surfactants such as alkyl sulfates and alkylaryl sulfonates, amphoteric surfactants, nonionic surfactants, carbonic acid. Metal salts, metal silicates, condensed polyphosphates, metal borate, metal percarbonates,
Alkali builders such as metal salts of perborate, type A zeolites, chelating agents, carboxymethyl cellulose, fluorescent agents and the like are used. In particular, according to the present invention, since there is no heating and drying step, a volatile or thermally decomposable nonionic surfactant or the like can be added. Further, according to the method of the present invention, it is possible to obtain a granular detergent having good powder characteristics without using a phosphate builder such as a condensed polyphosphate whose use is suppressed in recent years.

Then, the solid mixture of detergent components is crushed and granulated by a crusher to obtain a granular detergent having a bulk density of 0.6 g / cc or more. The average particle size of the granular detergent is 0.5 to 2
mm is suitable. It is necessary to control the disintegration treatment time to 0.5 to 10 seconds. When crushing is performed in a time shorter than 0.5 seconds, over-crushing occurs and a large amount of fine powder is generated.
Also, if it exceeds 10 seconds, it becomes difficult to remove the friction heat,
It cannot be crushed practically and it becomes a nodule, resulting in overload operation. The retention time can be controlled by controlling the feed amount into the crushing chamber, the retention amount in the crushing chamber, the material properties of the crushing raw material (solid mixture of detergent components), and the like.

During crushing, cold air is sent into the crushing chamber to prevent the temperature of the crushing material (crushing raw material) from rising due to the heat of grinding. 0.01 to 5 cold air below 20 ° C. per 1 kg of crushed material
It is necessary to supply m ^{3, and} if it is less than 0.01 m ^3, it is difficult to prevent the temperature rise, and if it is more than 5 m ³ , it is not good in terms of running cost.

Further, at the time of crushing, water-insoluble or water-insoluble fine powder having a particle size of 10 μm or less is added to the crushing chamber to coat the renewed surface due to crushing to prevent excessive adhesion. is necessary. Specific examples of the water-insoluble or sparingly soluble fine powder include A-type zeolite, titanium oxide, and silicic acid anhydride. The amount of the water-insoluble or sparingly soluble fine powder added is appropriately 0.5 to 5 wt% with respect to the ground material, but it is preferable to correlate it with the renewed surface ratio of the ground material. In other words, when it is desired to reduce the particle size of the crushed product, a large amount of fine powder is added, while when increasing the particle size, a small addition amount is sufficient.

For the crushing, an appropriate crusher can be used, but it is preferable to use a crusher provided with a classifying function such as screen classification and wind classification for the crusher itself, and in particular, a rotary crusher in the crushing chamber. It is preferable to have a blade so that the crushed granulated product is discharged from the screen opening portion. The particle size of the granulated product can be controlled by adjusting the size of the screen. If necessary, an outer partial class can be added to control the particle size.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a structural example of such a crusher. The crushing chamber 11 is provided with a crushed material supply port 13 and a cold air introduction port 15. The crushing chamber 11 is cylindrical and is provided with a screen (opening) 17 open at 360 ° on its cylindrical wall surface, and has a rotary crushing blade 19 which rotates substantially along the inner wall of the cylindrical wall. In the crushing chamber 11, the crushed material and the water-insoluble (hardly soluble) substance are supplied from the crushed material supply port 13, and the cold air is introduced from the cold air introduction port 15 to be cooled and the rotation of the crushing blade 19 is rotated. The crushing process is performed by. The crushed material having a smaller diameter than the opening of the screen 17 is discharged to the outside of the crushing chamber 11 together with the cooling air, and is recovered from the granular detergent recovery port 21. The particle size of the resulting granular detergent can be controlled by adjusting the opening of the screen 17.
Cold air of 20 ° C. or less was added to the crushing chamber at 0.
It is suitable to introduce 01 to 1 m ³ and cool. Also,
By controlling the average residence time of the crushed material in the crushing chamber to 0.5 to 10 seconds, excessive crushing is prevented, so that a granular detergent having a sharply reduced particle size distribution with a remarkably small amount of fine powder can be obtained. . A specific example of such a disintegrator is a speed mill ND-30 type (manufactured by Okada Seiko Co., Ltd.). The obtained detergent particles may be directly made into a product by adding a trace component such as a fragrance, or may be surface-modified by coating with a water-insoluble or sparingly water-soluble substance.

As the water-insoluble fine powder, those having a particle size of 4 μm or less are suitable. As the coating device, any of a rolling type, a fluidized bed type, a mixing type and the like is used, and the water-insoluble fine powder is attached to the surface of the granulated product. The amount of the water-insoluble fine powder added at the time of coating is 0.5 to
5 wt% is suitable. Typical examples of the water-insoluble fine powder include calcium stearate, magnesium stearate, aluminosilicates such as A-type zeolite, calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, magnesium silicate, silicon dioxide (white carbon), titanium dioxide and the like. By coating in this way, adhesion between detergent particles is suppressed and blocking due to storage is prevented. In addition, the surface properties are modified by fine powder coating to improve the fluidity, surplus water remains in the particles, the solubility is improved, and the solubility in cold water is sufficient for practical use. In addition, the obtained detergent particles are sized using a sizing machine such as Marumerizer [Fuji Paudal Co., Ltd.] to homogenize the particle shape into a substantially spherical shape, or to adjust the water content by slightly drying with warm air. You can also do it.

[0015]

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, it is possible to efficiently obtain a synthetic granular detergent by suppressing the generation of fine powder particles by a crushing process which does not require a drying process. Since the generation of fine powder particles is small, the problem of dust generation does not occur, and the granular detergent can be obtained in high yield. Moreover, the obtained granular detergent has a small angle of repose and good fluidity. The method of the present invention is an industrially advantageous method without requiring a complicated apparatus and complicated operating conditions for granulation, which is a drawback of the conventional non-drying method.

[0016]

[Examples] Sodium α-olefin sulfonate (C number: 14 to 18) 25 parts by weight Alkylbenzene sulfonic acid (C number of alkyl group: 12) 15 parts by weight Sodium hydroxide 5 parts by weight A-type zeolite 15 parts by weight Sodium carbonate 30 parts by weight of carboxymethylcellulose and 3 parts by weight of a fluorescent agent were kneaded by a kneader to obtain mixed pellets (average particle size 10 mm) having the water content shown in Table 1. The pellets and the crushing aid shown in Table 1 were quantitatively fed to a crusher (Speed Mill ND-10 manufactured by Okada Seiko), and the crushing treatment was performed while introducing cold air at 12 ° C. For crushing, use a crushing blade with a diameter of 15 cm at 4 rpm and 3000 rpm
The screen was a herringbone type with a diameter of 1.5 mm. Table 1 shows the crushing conditions and the properties of the obtained granular detergent. In addition, the properties of a commercial synthetic granular detergent manufactured by the spray drying method are also shown. Here, the amount of dust generation was measured as follows.

Measurement of Dust Generation A blower blows air from the bottom of a glass tube (diameter 50 mm, height 500 mm) with a 100-mesh screen on the bottom, and the dust collector (diameter is filled with glass fiber from the top of the glass tube. The measuring device was designed so as to lead to 30 mm). 30 g of the obtained granular detergent was put into a glass tube, and dry compressed air of 60% RH or less was blown into the glass tube at an air volume of 30 l / min for 1 minute. Then, the dust collector was removed and weighed, and the weight increase of the dust collector was obtained from the pre-weighed weight before the test, and the dust generation amount was derived from the following formula 1.

[0018]

[Equation 1]

[0019]

[Table 1] Actual example ratio Comparative example 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Ground water content: Total water content (wt%) 8 8 10 12 4 17 7 * ³ Free water ratio (%) * ¹ 6 6 7 7 4 14 3 * ³ Disintegration conditions: Disintegration aid; Type * ² A B A A A A A A * ³ Addition amount (% of crushed material) 3 4 3 3 2 8 2 * ³ Particle size (μm) 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 * ³ Cool air volume (l / kg) 50 100 80 100 40 700 40 * ³ Crushing room average 3 2 3 4 0.2 (15) * ⁴ 0.2 * ³ Residence time (sec) Granular detergent properties: Average particle size (μm) 800 900 1100 1100 500 * ⁵ 500 500 Angle of repose (degree) 45 48 45 45 50 * ⁵ 50 45 ~ 50 Bulk density (g / cc) 0.70 0.68 0.72 0.70 0.62 * ⁵ 0.65 0.3 Dust generation amount (mgmin / l) 0.2 0.4 0.1 0.1 2 * ⁵ 3.5 6 Particle size distribution (%) 10 mesh Sieve 0.5 0.7 1 1 0.1 * ⁵ 0.5 1 10 to 60 mesh 96 95 97 97 77.9 * ⁵ 69 79 60 Below mesh screen 3.5 4.3 2.0 2.0 22 * ⁵ 30.5 20 * 1) Fixed water ratio: Total water content minus water retained as crystal water or bound water in detergent * 2 ) A: A type zeolite, B: Calcium carbonate * 3) Commercial synthetic granular detergent * 4) After crushing 15 seconds, it became an agglomerate and became overload stop * 5) Overload stop

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a crusher used for carrying out the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Crushing Chamber 13 Crushing Material Supply Port 14 Rotary Valve 15 Cold Air Inlet 17 Screen 19 Rotating Crushing Blade

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. When crushing and granulating a mixed solid of a detergent component, the water content in the mixed solid before crushing is adjusted to 5 to 5.
Adjusted to 15% by weight, and in the presence of water-insoluble or sparingly soluble fine powder having a particle size of 10 μm or less, cold air at 20 ° C. or less is crushed to 0.01 to 5 m ³ / k with respect to the mixed solid matter.
A method for producing a high bulk density synthetic granular detergent having a bulk density of 0.6 g / cc or more, which comprises crushing treatment for 0.5 to 10 seconds while supplying at a rate of g.