TETRANYL L15-85E. A New Laundry Additive for Clothes Protection to Provide Longer Life to Your Clothes. (2)

Interview with Marc Bernat
Business Unit Manager, Surfactants for Consumer Applications, Kao Chemicals Europe

You are part of the Kao Chemicals’ team for surfactants for consumer applications. What are your responsibilities?

My responsibility is to lead a commercial team that is customer and solution focused, motivated for bringing the innovation to our customers in EMEA and Americas regions. It is also my responsibility to delivery financial and non-financial objectives to KAO Chemicals Europe from my Business Unit of responsibility, assuring full alignment.

What is the latest innovation product aligned with this objective in the Home Care area?

KAO is a global leader in the segment of Fabric Softeners, offering a broad range of Esterquat variants which has been evolving over last 30 years according to the needs of the market in terms of performance, cost and sustainability. Particularly for this last point, recent developments include TETRANYL L6-90E as ECOCERT certified, biodegradable and with high naturality content (80% according to ISO16128 guidelines); or TETRANYL L9-90, based on European Oils, with excellent odour and colour stability and reduced Carbon Footprint compared to standard vegetable grades.

Fabric Softeners are known to provide lubricity to the fabrics, and hence protecting them against abrasion and pilling. That is a very important contribution to sustainability as by protecting clothes, we can extend their lifetime of usage. Production of new garments and disposal of old clothes is at the moment a very important sustainability issue for the fashion industry; in terms of landfill waste, water usage and pollution.

Considering our technical strengths and identifying a particular issue, KAO Chemicals Europe has developed a water soluble modified Esterquat, TETRANYL L15-85E, as a Laundry Care additive.

What are the main benefits of Tetranyl L15-85E?

As uniqueness, this liquid modified Esterquat can be incorporated into a water liquid detergent without affecting the detergency efficacy.

TETRANYL L15-85E provides to the Laundry Detergent the property of Lubricity to cotton fabrics, directly resulting in fiber protection against abrasion and pilling. Also colour can be protected to maintain the good appearance.

Could you give an example of applicability in formulation with TETRANYL L15-85E?

It is our ambition to bring innovation as part of a solution to our customers, and for that it implies to develop final formulations that can be used as guideline for our customers or inspire them for reformulating their current market products.

All formulations have been developed by our R&D according to the market requirements of ingredients, performance and possible market claims.

In the case of TETRANYL L15-85 as additive for Laundry Detergent, we have designed specific complete laundry detergent formulations in combination with other sustainable surfactants (i.e. LEVENOL SF-200 from European oil) which can be Ecolabel or provide softness to clothes.

All this information is available in our Sell Sheets and Formulation Guidelines.

What will come next in KAO Chemicals Europe?

We have different new lines of development in Home Care that have been introduced during SEPAWA event this October 2023, all aligned with the same sustainability targets explained before. That includes from lowering the carbon footprint of LEVENOL F-200 and EMANON XLF by using BIO-EO and reaching the 100% naturality content; to expand the new formats to the Softener category.

Additionally, as a continuous improvement process in KAO Chemicals Europe, it was recently announced the investment in a new biomass thermal power generation plant in our Olesa de Montserrat site that will cut the emissions by 95%, as a move towards carbon zero operations.

What is the contribution of Kao Chemicals Europe to the Sustainability?

Kao Chemical Europe takes a responsible approach to the environment, health and safety throughout the life cycle of its products, from their design, production, distribution and consumption to their scrapping or disposal for the treatment of generated by-products.

We combine our strengths with those of our customers and partners, promoting the shift towards decarbonization and the circular economy by developing sustainable materials and new solutions that are more respectful of the environment and people.

To achieve the objectives set, we work in all the business units of the organization in:

• The continuous improvement of processes to reduce the environmental impact both in material consumption and reduction of emissions and waste.
• The development of formulations with a good environmental profile, biodegradable and with low aquatic toxicity.
• Optimization of the type of packaging to reduce material consumption.

As a mode of example, in 2022 the activities carried out included the full development of ultra-concentrated detergents for direct use or for dilution, using exclusive surfactants, reducing hence water consumption, the size of containers and the cost of transport, and overall reducing the carbon footprint of the entire process.

https://www.kaochemicals-eu.com/