Detergents consist of chemistries that work together to break down soil in concert with water. One of the most important groups of these chemistries are known as Surfactants (surface acting agents). Surfactants help make water “wetter,” lift soil from surfaces, and keep the soil suspended in water so that it will not re-deposit on surfaces. One of the drawbacks of surfactants, however, is the foam they produce. Foam is fine in a bathtub or kitchen sink, but in reality, foam is essentially bubbles of air suspended in liquid. You know as well as I do that we are not cleaning with air, but rather, we are cleaning with water. Foam is difficult to rinse and leads to additional water consumption. Furthermore, foam is a real problem in the washer-disinfector (WD), whereby it can damage pumps, impair measurements, and cause heating elements to burn out.

De-foaming agents suppress the foam in detergents and are usually recruited from a group of surfactants called “cloud-point surfactants.” These cloud-point surfactants can produce foam just like any other surfactant until they are brought to a certain temperature. Once that temperature is reached, they become less soluble in water, and the water they are in becomes cloudy; hence, the name “cloud-point surfactants.”

POWER ZYME™ contains these “cloud-point” surfactants. When added to the manual soak, or if you have a heated ultrasonic cleaner, you will notice that once the water temperature reaches 95°F (35°C) and beyond, it will begin to cloud. If you were to place this warmed, cloudy solution in a bottle and shake it, you would see very little foam–and any foam that did form would soon dissipate. This is why POWER ZYME™ optimizes the wash cycle in your washer-disinfector, and why we at Potomac Labs recommend dosing POWER ZYME™ once “cloud-point” temperature is reached in the washer.