How will we wash clothes in the future? Use biology to defeat biology!

When I was a child, I washed clothes by hand. It was okay in the summer, but it was quite troublesome in the winter. Besides, the detergents at that time were either soap or washing powder. Later, with the popularity of washing machines, my mother's hands were freed. Today's washing machines are really becoming more and more advanced and convenient, but you may have discovered that for the cuffs and collars, we still need to soak and rub them before putting them in the washing machine, which is also very inconvenient. Then the question is, how can we wash clothes better? Let's talk about it today.

01

The road to detergent development

Speaking of washing clothes, except for extremely noble individuals, everyone has washed clothes. It is simply too common.

What should we do when clothes are dirty? Wash with water. What should we do if clothes are not clean enough? Detergent. This is a truth that almost everyone understands. Therefore, in order to improve the cleaning effect of laundry, we have never stopped researching and developing detergents.

In the oldest times, people used various natural ingredients to remove stains. For example, some people used rice water, some used wood ash, and of course the most widely used one might be soapberry, which is a product from the soapberry tree and has a good stain removal effect. Therefore, for quite a long time, soapberry combined with a washboard can be said to be one of the main strategies for washing clothes.

In order to remove as many kinds of stains as possible, whether oil stains or other stains, humans, under the guidance of the chemical industry, have found many ways to remove stains, and even invented whitening detergents that can remove all colors other than clothing materials.

It can be said that this is a process in which great efforts bring about miracles.

However, these intensive stain removal processes have brought about a side effect, that is, these chemical detergents themselves can be said to be indiscriminate in washing, so the result is that the stains are removed, but the material of the clothes themselves is also affected. This is one of the reasons why clothes are often not durable.

02

How to remove stains on clothes?

Now, people have finally begun to look for new ideas for washing, which is to specifically study the composition of stains and remove them in a targeted manner.

For example, stains on clothes can be divided into biological stains and non-biological stains. Non-biological stains are easy to understand, such as dust, ink and the like, which are actually easier to remove and can be removed using common detergents.

But for modern people who pay more attention to life, we can avoid these non-biological stains to a large extent in our lives. Therefore, another type of stains stands out, that is, biological stains.

For example, clothes are in contact with the skin for a long time, causing the sebum such as squalene, fatty acids, and cholesterol on the skin to adhere to the clothes. Another example is common substances in life such as oil stains, egg stains, wine stains, etc. These stains are the main reason why our clothes cannot be washed clean and turn yellow.

The typical characteristic of these biological stains is that they are biological macromolecules, especially the common protein components. They have advanced structures and are very tightly attached to clothes, especially the pure cotton clothes that everyone likes to use.

In this case, it is difficult to remove it with ordinary detergents, which is why the clothes start to turn yellow over time. Of course, you can also use strong chemical whitening detergents, but the result is that the material of the clothes itself is also destroyed.

What should we do at this time? Our biological law comes into play.

03

How to deal with biological stains?

In living organisms, there is a special method to deal with proteins, that is: enzymes, which are enzymes in biology.

I believe everyone is familiar with enzymes. The enzymes added to laundry detergents are these things, which can catalyze the degradation of stains through biocatalysis.

However, over the years, the application of enzymes in detergents has always faced two problems:

1. The enzyme itself is too simple. For low-cost laundry detergents, adding enzymes can only be said to be better than nothing, so the enzymes in many detergents are very simple.

2. The activity of enzymes. Those who have studied high school biology know that enzymes are large molecular proteins, and their activity is easily destroyed. In the past, enzymes and chemical detergents were put together, and they were easily destroyed by chemicals. As a result, the enzymes lost their activity over time.

Therefore, some washing machine manufacturers have begun to study how to make enzymes work better, which is very worth looking forward to.

Generally speaking, using biological methods to solve biological problems is a new idea for the future laundry industry. I believe that there will definitely be more comprehensive and better washing solutions in the future, which can prevent clothes from being damaged to the greatest extent during the washing process while maintaining cleanliness.