WO1997035952A1

WO1997035952A1 - Powdered cleaning agent for carpets

Info

Publication number: WO1997035952A1
Application number: PCT/JP1997/000753
Authority: WO
Inventors: Shigekazu Ishii
Original assignee: Johnson Company, Ltd.
Priority date: 1996-03-26
Filing date: 1997-03-11
Publication date: 1997-10-02
Also published as: JPH09255992A

Abstract

A powdered cleaning agent for carpets is comprised of a chip obtained by cutting a specified class of cellulose sponge. The cleaning agent excels in both cleanability and collectability, thus contributing greatly to enhanced working efficiency for carpet cleaning.

Description

DESCRIPTION

POWDERED CLEANING AGENT FOR CARPETS Technical Field The present invention relates to a powdered cleaning agent which enables dirt to be effectively removed from fabric products such as carpets and the like, mats, wooden floors, chemical floors, "tatami" mats and so on.

Background Art

For their unique feeling of walking, heat insulation and feeling of luxury, carpets have for long been accepted by people and have been applied onto a large number of floors.

However, the carpets that are of a fabric formation are liable to become dirty as compared to rigid floors, namely chemical tile floors, wooden floors, stone floors and the like, and besides are by nature apt to have dirt captured and deposited in the carpet-constituting fabrics. In order to make such a carpet normally clean, more frequent cleaning is needed than the case with the rigid floors.

As one typical system for carpet cleaning, a shampoo cleaning system has heretofore been in common use. This cleaning system is conducted with use of a liquid cleaning agent composed predominantly of an anionic surfactant and by means of a carpet shampooing machine. Though excellent in respect of detergency, the cleaning system is susceptible to prolonged drying of a cleaned carpet owing to use of water in a large amount, and hence, the carpet is not useful for walking thereon for several hours longer after cleaning. The carpet also gets shrunk since it is wetted rather excessively. Further, a cleaning liquid penetrates up to a substrate fabric of the carpet and wets even the matting jute underlay so that lignin contained in the jute eluates onto a carpet surface while the carpet is being dried, thus leaving brownish specks on the carpe .

Moreover, intelligent buildings recently developed provide office rooms having a wide variety of 0A equipment installed. In such places, there are disposed tile carpets usually of 50 cm in square. Also located below carpet underlays are electric wirings (flat cablings) for use in the 0A equipment, or practical double-floored structures (free access floors) .

In the case of use of the shampoo cleaning system in those office rooms, which system requires large amounts of a cleaning liquid, excess such liquid intrudes through the gaps between the tile carpets into the electric wirings, eventually causing the corresponding electric current to become shortened (short circuiting). Consequently, a powder system has been developed as a substitute technique for the shampoo cleaning system. This powder system is taken to mean a method wherein a dirty carpet is cleaned by spreading thereover a powder impregnated with detergent components, by cleaning a carpet surface with an exclusive brushing machine, and by allowing dirt-adsorbed powder particles to stand as they are on the carpet, followed by drying of the particles and by subsequent collection of the resulting particles as with a vacuum cleaner. The powder system needs no water unlike the shampoo cleaning system, thus excelling in drying capabilities and permitting walking on the cleaned carpet within one hour. In addition, such powder system has no fear of a carpet getting shrunk, of brownish specks taking place on the carpet, and of excess detergent liquid penetrating even into the electric wirings, thus leading to safer carpet cleaning. As discussed above, the powder system per se is simple and convenient and hence has been employed at a great number of sites where carpeting is required.

As powders for use in the powder system, naturally occurring woodmeal commonly called sawdust has hitherto been employed which is highly dirt-absorptive and is by nature detergent-active. From the viewpoint of detergency, however, the natural woodmeal is adjusted in its particle size to not larger than 1000 μ (micron). The woodmeal itself is of a hard wood, irregular in size and sharply angular in shape, and therefore, the powder entangles itself with the carpet-constituting fibers and becomes impossible of easy pickup even by use of a vacuum cleaner after cleaning. Further, because of the problem of forest destruction today voiced, a need has been aroused for considering base materials other than the natural woodmeal.

For the foregoing reasons, various base materials other than the woodmeal powder have been taken in view.

A certain method, for instance, is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 56-90896 in which borax of an inorganic class is used as a cleaning powder. However, since inorganic powders are usually in particulate form with a particle size of below 100 μ, they have the problem that their particles fly in the air in the course of spreading, leading to a dirty working atmosphere which includes walls, windowpanes, tables, chairs, house furnishings, ornaments and so on and that the particles tend to orally enter the worker's body and hence do harm to the safety of the latter. In addition, even after dirt pickup, the powder remains uncollected in a larger amount on the carpet than the natural woodmeal. The residual inorganic powder is white in color and thus is responsible for a sharp decline in aesthetic appearance of the carpet.

Still another problem is that when let to stand as it is, the residual inorganic powder becomes moist and, in spite of the completion of carpet cleaning, attracts soil and sand carried by subsequent walking of the user, resulting in extremely stained carpet.

As regards cleaning systems relying upon resins other than the inorganic powders, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 57-126900 discloses a method wherein a particulate aminoformaldehyde resin is used as a cleaning powder. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 59-161500 also discloses a method wherein a particulate acetylcellulose is used as a cleaning powder.

Those resinous powders, however, have as small a particule size as 10 to 1000 microns (μ) and remain uncollected in carpets to be cleaned. Thus, they pose problems similar to those experienced by the inorganic powder.

Additionally, the resinous powders that are not from a naturally occurring source are undesirable from a standpoint of waste disposal of those powders which have been spent in cleaning. To solve the problem that the cleaning powders get captured in the carpet-constituting fibers, an inorganic powder and a resinous powder may possibly be adjusted in their respective particle sizes to be greater than 1000 microns. However, such adjustment invites a powder having its total surface area decreased, resulting in reduced retention of detergent components in the powder and adverse sedimentation of those components at a bottom portion of the powder so that the powder cannot maintain uniform detergency. The resulting powder entails "irregular cleaning", failing to exhibit satisfactory cleanability. As mentioned above, both cleanability and coUectability are difficult to gain in well-balanced manner with use of conventional types of woodmeal powders and inorganic powders as well as resinous powders.

Disclosure of the Invention

The present invention seeks to develop a powder for use in the powder cleaning of carpets which excels in both cleanability and coUectability. As a result of their intensive research on the above intended problem, the present inventor has completed the invention.

Namely, the present invention is directed to a powdered cleaning agent for carpets, characterized in that such cleaning agent is comprised of chips obtained by cutting a cellulose sponge. Preferred Embodiments of Invention

Cellulose sponges for use in the present invention are produced from woods, or grass and shrubs as base materials. Firstly, a base material is dissolved into a pulp which is then treated with a sodium hydroxide solution, followed by addition of a chemical such as carbon disulfide or caustic soda to the pulp to thereby prepare a viscose. This viscose is allowed to foam and coagulate by mixture with a foaming agent such as sodium sulfite or the like. The foam thus coagulated is washed with a softener, a bleaching agent, a weakly acidic solution and so on. Subsequently, the resultant foam is cut in an optionally selected direction in a commonly known fashion, whereby chips are obtained. The chips are rinsed with water prior to use in order to remove any residual foaming agent therefrom. On the other hand, such a cellulose sponge is easily commercially available for example under the tradename of Chafflose Sponge (manufactured by Chafflose Company) .

The chip produced from a cellulose sponge is characteristic in that it is small in bulk density, say usually below 0.3, and besides is soft in nature owing to use of grass and shrubs as base materials and hence easy to be collected with a vacuum cleaner with no residues in a carpet to be cleaned.

Because of its fibrous structure peculiar to the cellulose sponge, the chip has detergent components sufficiently impregnated and retained therein so that such components are wholly uniformly distributed in the chip without sedimentation at a bottom portion of the chip. Thus, carpet cleaning is ensured with uniformity.

Although the color shade of the cellulose sponge is not particularly restrictive, white and other tints are desirable since the level of cleaning is easily visually determinable by inspection of those chips having adsorbed dirt and hence having become blackish.

The powdered cleaning agent for carpets is finished up with the cellulose sponge noted above and a commonly known detergent composed of a surfactant, a solvent, a basic compound, a chelating agent and the like.

The following materials are typical of the detergent.

Surfactants may be surface active agents of a nonionic class, of an anionic class and of an amphoteric class. With detergency in view, particularly preferred are nonionic surfactants such as polyoxyethylene alkyl ethers with 3 to 16 mols of ethylene oxide, polyoxyalkyl phenyl ethers with 3 to 16 mols of ethylene oxide and the like, and anionic surfactants such as sodium alkylsulfates, polyoxyethylene sodium alkylsulfates with 1 to 3 mols of ethylene oxide, ammonium alkylsulfate salts, polyoxyethylene ammonium alkylsulphate salts with 1 to 3 mols of ethylene oxide, alkylbenzene sulfonate salts and the like. With regard to solvents, hydrophilic solvents and lipophilic solvents may be used. Suitable hydrophilic solvents are high-boiling alcohols having a solubility in water of more than 1% at 25 °C and boiling at a temperature higher than 100 "C at normal pressure, and alkyl ethers of and ethylene oxide adducts of polyhydric alcohols. Specific examples include 3-methyl-3-methoxybutanol, ethylene glycol butyl ether, diethylene glycol butyl ether, propylene glycol butyl ether, benzyl alcohol, adducts of benzyl alcohol with ethylene oxide, adducts of phenyl ether with 1 to 3 mols of ethylene oxide and the like.

Furthermore, suitable lipophilic solvents are petroleum solvents of normal-paraffin hydrocarbons and of isoparaffin hydrocarbons. In regard to basic compounds, those inorganic compounds which are strongly alkaline and free from volatility are not preferable because they are liable to remain as they are in a carpet to be cleaned and hence to impair the carpet-constituting materials. Safer amine compounds such as triethanolamine, diethanolamine, monoethanolamine, ammonia and the like are useful which are rather weakly alkaline, volatile in character and hence free from remaining in the carpet. Chelating agents may include polyaminocarboxylic acid, polyaminocarboxylate salts, polyacrylate salts and the like, all of which are known in the art.

Detergents can be obtained with use of the various materials stated hereinabove. Preferably used among these detergents is Carpecare Shampoo marketed by Johnson Company, Ltd. The powdered cleaning agent for carpets according to the present invention may be produced by the use of the cellulose sponge chip and detergent, both specified herein, and in the following way in general.

That is to say, with use of 10 to 50 parts of the powder detergent based on 100 parts of the cellulose sponge chips, the detergent is allowed to be fully impregnated in the chips with a powder mixer, whereby a powdered cleaning agent for carpets is obtained. In such instance, the content of the detergent in the chips varies with the amount of and the concentration of the detergent. This content can be varied at will depending on the level of dirt on a carpet surface to be cleaned. The resultant powdered cleaning agent for carpets is spread over the carpet surface to be cleaned, and brush cleaning is carried out by use of an exclusive brushing machine. Immediately after cleaning is completed, the chips are collected with a vacuum cleaner with the result that no such chips are left uncollected in the carpet. Accordingly, cleaning is made possible with safety and high cleanability and without involvement in reduced aesthetic appearance of the carpet and also in impaired working atmosphere. Kinds of carpets eligible for cleaning are nylon carpets, wool carpets, acrylic carpets, polyester carpets and so on.

In addition and noticeably, since the cleaning agent according to the present invention is large in particle size, small in bulk density and soft in nature, the associated cellulose chips can be collected even immediately after the completion of cleaning when the chips are still moist with the result that especially excellent workability is attainable with improved efficiency for carpet cleaning. This is in marked contrast to the powdered cleaning agents in current use which, due to the fact that fine particles of the powder wetted with detergent components are adherent to carpet-constituting fibers, and that the powder gets uncollected in a great amount in the carpet even upon collection with a vacuum cleaner immediately after the completion of cleaning, requires interrupted working usually for about 15 minutes to 30 minutes until the powder dries fully and subsequent collection of the powder can be conducted.

The present invention will be further described with reference to several examples which should not be considered limited thereto.

In these examples, all parts are by weight. Examples 1 to 3 Chips (particle size 10 mm), each of less than 0.3 in bulk density, were used which had been prepared by pulverizing a sponge tradenamed Chafflose Sponge (manufactured by Chafflose Company) wherein grass and shrubs were used as base materials, and thereafter by rinsing with water to thereby remove a foaming agent contained in the sponge. Then, with use of a shampoo manufactured by Johnson Company, Ltd. (tradename, Carpecare Shampoo) in the amounts shown in Table 1 based on 100 parts of the Chafflose sponge, the shampoo was fully impregnated in the sponge with a powder mixer, whereby powdered cleaning agents for carpets were provided.

Comparative Examples 1 and 2

For comparative purposes, a woodmeal powder (particle size 0.2 mm) was taken as Comparative Example 1 and a borax (particle size 0.05 mm) as Comparative Example 2. Powdered cleaning agents for carpets were provided in the same manner as in Example 3. Table 1

Performance evaluation was made, by the following carpet testing methods, of the powdered cleaning agents obtained in Examples 1 to 3 and of Comparative Examples 1 and 2. 1. Carpet Testing Methods ( 1 ) Specimens

Put to use were specimens resulting from a nylon carpet (shade: gray, texture: loop pile) made evenly dirty by natural walking. (2) Evaluation Methods of Detergency and Collectablity

Each of the powdered cleaning agents for carpets was spread over the above carpet in an amount of 80 g per 1 m², and sufficient cleaning was done with a brush. Immediately after cleaning is completed, the powder was collected with a vacuum cleaner. Detergency and coUectability were adjudged by the evaluation methods given below.

Detergency (Scouring Points)

5 points: The dirt was completely cleaned. 4 points: The dirt was considerably cleaned but with a slight residue observed. 3 points: An extent of about 50% of the dirt was cleaned.

2 points: Only a slight extent of the dirt was cleaned. 1 point: Almost no dirt was cleaned.

(At 3 points or below, sufficient detergency was not attainable so that the sightly appearance of the carpet was not recoverable. )

CoUectability (Scouring Points)

5 points: The powder was completely recovered with no residue. 4 points: The powder was considerably recovered but with a trace remaining. 3 points: An amount of about 30% of the powder remained uncollected. 2 points: Only a slight amount of the powder was recovered. 1 point: Almost no powder was recovered. (At 3 points or below, the carpet was rendered dirty with its aesthetic appearance remarkably reduced due to the uncollected powder. ) The results obtained based on the above test methods are shown in Table 2. Table 2

As is apparent from Table 2, the powdered cleaning agent for carpets in which the cellulose sponge chip according to the present invention is used to advantage is excellent in both cleanability and coUectability which were unattainable by conventional counterparts, and therefore, is highly industrially significant.

Claims

1. A powdered cleaning agent for carpets, which comprises a chip resulting from cutting of a cellulose sponge.

2. A powdered cleaning agent according to claim 1, which contains, as a detergent component, at least one member selected from a surfactant, a solvent, a basic compound and a chelating agent.