Polymers and laundry detergent compositions containing them
View Patent ↗Hydrophobically modified vinyl pyrrolidone polymers which are copolymers having a vinyl pyrrolidone backbone and pendant hydrophobic side chains are useful in laundry detergent compositions to improve detergency and/or antiredeposition. The pendant hydrophobic side chains preferably comprise alkyl chains containing from 4 to 20 carbon atoms and may be linked to the backbone via an ester linkage.
1. A laundry detergent composition comprising an organic surfactant comprising from 3 to 30% of linear alkylbenzene sulphonate, and a hydrophobically modified vinyl pyrrolidone polymer which is a copolymer having a vinyl pyrrolidone backbone and pendant hydrophobic side chains wherein the pendant hydrophobic side chains of the copolymer are derived from a vinyl ester of the general formula I:
R 1 —CO—O—CH═CH 2 (I)
wherein R 1 is a linear or branched alkyl group having from 6 to 10 carbon atoms, the polymer being present in an amount effective to improve detergency and/or antiredeposition.
2. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the polymer contains from 10 to 90 mole % of vinyl pyrrolidone units and from 10 to 90 mole % of hydrophobic comonomer units.
3. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , wherein in the general formula I R 1 is a group of the formula II
wherein R 2 is a linear alkyl group having from 2 to 8 carbon atoms and R 3 is a methyl or ethyl group.
4. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the polymer contains units derived from vinyl 2-ethylhexanoate.
5. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the polymer contains from 90 to 99.5 wt % of vinyl pyrrolidone monomer units and from 0.5 to 10 wt % of vinyl 2-ethylhexanoate monomer units.
6. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , which contains from 0.5 to 5 wt % of the hydrophobically modified vinyl pyrrolidone polymer.
7. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , which comprises:
(a) from 5 to 60 wt % of organic surfactant,
(b) optionally from 5 to 80 wt %, of detergency builder,
(c) from 0.5 to 5 wt % of the hydrophobically modified vinyl pyrrrolidone polymer,
(d) optionally other detergent ingredients to 100 wt %.
8. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 with a pH of from 7.0 to 11.0.
9. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , wherein contains from 10 to 25 wt %, of linear alkylbenzene sulphonate.
10. A detergent composition as claimed in claim 1 , which comprises from 5 to 80 wt % of detergency builder selected from the group consisting of sodium tripolyphosphate, zeolites, sodium carbonate and mixtures thereof.
11. A method of improving the detergency and/or antiredeposition of a laundry detergent composition, the method comprising incorporating the laundry detergent composition of claim 1 into the composition.
12. A detergent composition is claimed in claim 6 which contains from 1 to 4 wt % of the hydrophobicaily modified vinyl pyrrolidone polymer.
13. Additives and composition as claimed in claim 1 with a pH from 7.5 to 10.5.