A suite of new laundry technologies from Kimberly-Clark offers a route to a variety of rapidly developable convenience products that range from on-the-spot stain treatments to fun soap pads and a new dry medium for laundry detergent.
The technologies can be applied by themselves or in combination to produce a wider line of products.
Two of the technologies act as unique substrates that can deliver surfactants and other actives in new ways, and the third offers a stabilized hydrogen peroxide active for difficult-to-remove stains.
Kimberly-Clark also has patents that support a kit, wipes, and a method to use the technology.
Water-dispersible (solid) foams:
These extruded foams may contain a cleaning agent or incorporate one within the foam construction, can be tinted or formed as needed for branding, or custom-formulated.
The starch-based foams provide a unique way to deliver cleaning agents. It offers task-specific portioning, long shelf-life, and light and easy packaging and transportation.
Dissolvable fibrous detergent sheet:
This technology eliminates the need for liquid laundry detergents by incorporating surfactants into dissolvable fibers.
The fibers form a sheet and can be placed directly into the washing machine. The sheet may be enhanced with other additives.
A highly convenient and user-friendly form factor, the sheets can be supply-chain optimized for packaging and distribution. They can be branded via embossing.
Stabilized hydrogen peroxide:
A decolorizing composition that targets haemoglobin from blood and other difficult-to-remove stains.
It is an aqueous solution low in peroxide. It offers good shelf-stability and performance, and can be used as a pre-treatment or incorporated into other products (such as stain sticks) and combined with detergents or other surfactants.
The solution is composed of hydrogen peroxide, a surfactant, a chelating agent, an antioxidant, and water.
Benefits Summary:
The three technologies offer dry transportation, portion and application control, time-release, and branding options separately or together.
Development Summary:
Various embodiments and pre-production samples have been created for testing and to support customer panel research studies. Laboratory samples can be made upon request for evaluation purposes.
IP Summary:
This technology is supported by 5 US patents, 1 Japanese patent and 2 European patents
