Surfactants in laundry detergent

Main article: Surfactant

Anionic surfactants: branched alkylbenzenesulfonate, linear alkylbenzenesulfonate, and a soap.
Surfactants are responsible for most of the cleaning performance in laundry detergent. They provide this by absorption and emulsification of soil into the water and also by reducing the water's surface tension to improve wetting.

Laundry detergents contain mostly anionic and non-ionic surfactants. Cationic surfactants are normally incompatible with anionic detergents and have poor cleaning efficiency; they are employed only for certain special effects, as fabric softeners, antistatic agents, and biocides. Zwitterionic surfactants are rarely employed in laundry detergents mainly for cost reasons. Most detergents use a combination of various surfactants to balance their performance.

Until the 1950s, soap was the predominant surfactant in laundry detergents. By the end of the 1950s so-called "synthetic detergents" (syndets) like tetrapropylenebenzenesulfonate (TPS) had largely replaced soap in developed countries. Due to their poor biodegradability these branched alkylbenzenesulfonates were replaced with linear alkylbenzenesulfonates (LAS) in the mid-1960s. Since the 1980s, alkyl sulfates such as SDS have found increasing application at the expense of LAS.

Since the 1970s, nonionic surfactants like alcohol ethoxylates have acquired a higher share in laundry detergents. In the 1990s, glucamides appeared as co-surfactants, and alkyl polyglycosides have been used in specialty detergents for fine fabrics.