We introduce UFARYL® C4, a new phosphate-free eco-friendly surfactant that delivers outstanding limescale prevention in toilet care – without the environmental disadvantages of phosphates. Designed to meet global performance demands, UFARYL® C4 uses a synergistic builder system that achieves limescale inhibition comparable to the phosphate-based alternatives while remaining sustainable, cost-effective, and highly efficient in hard-water conditions. This innovation expands our industry-leading UFARYL® portfolio and supports cleaner toilets, improved formulation flexibility, and a more responsible approach to hygiene product development.
As Unger Fabrikker A.S, we are one of Europe's leading producers of anionic surfactants, with the world’s largest portfolio of dry linear alkylbenzene sulphonates (LASs). Our UFARYL® product range accommodates both easy processing and excellent performance, in addition to fragrance and color compatibility to ensure satisfied consumers all over the world.
The UFARYL® portfolio offers a wide range of products for different challenges within toilet care, such as limescale build-up. Limescale is a common problem in many parts of the world, where ground water contains minerals such as calcium and magnesium. This is called hard water, and results from water moving through soft rocks like limestone, chalk, or gypsum. When limescale builds, it leaves unpleasant brown, orange, or pink colored stains in toilet bowls.
Cleaning limescale build up can be difficult. There are, however, several methods toprevent limescale from depositing and thereby avoiding or reducing this problem. The most important base component to ensure a clean toilet is an anionic surfactant, pared with a suitable builder. The three most common building mechanisms in the surfactant industry are chelation, precipitation, and ion exchange. Chelates reduce water hardness by forming soluble complexes with the metal ions, while the builder and metal ion forms a neutral salt that comes out of solution in the precipitation mechanism. In the ion exchange mechanism, the builder is not water soluble, and the sodium ions are substituted by hard water ions.
Over the past years, Sodium Tripolyphosphate (STPP) has been commonly used as a builder together with LAS, such as in UFARYL® DL 80 P. This is an extremely effective anionic surfactant used in toilet blocks. Phosphate provides both limescale removal and prevention at a fast rate by chelation, even at low temperatures. Regardless of these advantages, an increased focus on more sustainable solutions in the market has encouraged the development of new solutions without phosphate, but with just as good limescale prevention performance.
Phosphates are effective in preventing limescale because they soften water and stop mineral deposits. However, they are harmful to the environment because when they enter rivers and lakes through waste water, they act as fertilizers for algae. This causes eutrophication – excessive algae growth that consumes oxygen in the water, killing fish and other aquatic life. As the algae dies and decompose, they use even more oxygen, creating “dead zones” where almost nothing can survive. The water becomes murky, sunlight cannot reach under water plants, and the entire ecosystem becomes unbalanced.
We have recently developed a brand-new UFARYL®, UFARYL® C4 which effectively utilizes the synergy effect of different building mechanisms. After extensive laboratory testing, this new builder system has proven to be almost as effective as phosphate-containing products, providing excellent limescale prevention. Figures 1 & Figure 2 below show the limescale inhibition properties of UFARYL® C4, compared to other LAS-based surfactants.
Limescale inhibition testing on tiles that have been submerged in hard water (55°fH) (left), hard water (55°fH) with standard LAS (middle) and hard water (55°fH) with UFARYL® C4 (right).
Limescale inhibition (mmol/L Ca2+) with hard water (55°fH) using a reference (blue), standard LAS (gray), LAS with phosphate (brown), UFARYL® C4 (dark blue).
As seen with laboratory testing, UFARYL® C4 has comparable limescale inhibition properties as the phosphate-containing products. This is especially visible on the black tiles in Figure 1 where very little visible limescale is formed when UFARYL® C4 is present.
Overall, UFARYL® C4 is more environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and provides great detergency properties, resulting in a fantastic new surfactant suitable for toilet care applications all over the world. UFARYL® C4 is the brand new UFARYL® product which effectively inhibits limescale formation in toilet care.