DEFLOCCULATE

[Lyman]

Grooms new email says its prespray can deflocculate soil. Did they make up a new word.

 

[hogjowl]

I did a Stockwellian search on the word and found plenty to make me a bulletin board guru.

 

[Jim Pemberton]

Nope, its a real word Lyman. I'll ask Shawn Forsythe to define it since he's smarter than I am.

I hate using the term when I teach detergent activity in class because some students snicker and it sounds like some kind of immoral activity.

 

[Shawn Forsythe]

In cleaning, this term refers to separation of soil from a surface on which it is deposited, normally accomplished with alkalinity and detergent action assisted by mechanical agitation. (this is basically the IICRC definition)

More accurately though, it means to take certain bound-together soils-which are clumped together(agglomerated), and to caused to disperse it into small particles, whilst chemically utilizing a "deflocculant" material to add like electrostatic charges that causes these particles to remain suspended and apart in the solution (actually a colloidal).

 

[Lyman]

disperse in fine particles

 

[Hoody]

Don't get it confused with emulsification.