The front-loading washing machine is an integral part of household life for many, with little notice given to the extensive interplay of physical, chemical and thermal phenomena taking place as the clothes inside tumble. With over 250 billion washes carried out annually in Europe alone, it has a staggering environmental impact due to its energy and water usage and also due to the chemicals that are drained to the sewage system at the end of a wash. There are two practical routes for reducing this impact; improving the design of the machine so that it requires less energy or water, or improving detergent formulations so that the required level of cleaning is achieved at lower temperatures and with a reduced input of product. The work presented in this study was initially carried out with the aim of designing better detergent formulations. Along the way, the results also enabled new tools for better washing machine design to be developed. For both routes, the basic requirement was to develop an understanding of the mechanisms which result in mechanical cleaning of textiles, which is the focus of results presented in this study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:629741 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Mac Namara, Carl |
| Publisher | University of Birmingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5538/ |
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