The calendar may have turned to 2020, but suppliers to the global home care industry say they expect the year to play out much the same as 2019, with similar gains and a focus on sustainability and innovation. It all comes at a time when sales within the mature US laundry care category rose just 2.1% last year to about $7.5 billion, according to IRI. Happi met with several industry suppliers during the recent American Cleaning Institute annual meeting and industry convention (see p. 70).

“Not much has changed (in the market) between 2019 and 2020,” observed Ralph Schweens, president, BASF Care Chemicals. “The focus remains on the customer, sustainability and innovation.”

The issues may remain the same, but the trend toward customization continues to grow.

“We are investing in innovation, and these core solutions can be customized to fit our customers’ needs,” said Scott Thomson, senior vice president, BASF Care Chemicals, North America. He pointed out that the company has significantly increased its research and development spending. BASF executives also pointed out that the company’s home care and I&I business unit currently offers 143 readily biodegradable ingredients, 70 bio-based ingredients and 51 Safer Choice ingredients in North America.

More than a year ago, Nouryon debuted after the AkzoNobel specialty chemicals business was acquired by The Carlyle Group and GIC. Following the acquisition, Nouryon has transformed from a product-focused company to one with a dedicated market focus, including home and personal care, said Suzanne Carroll, VP-home and personal care specialties.

“Providing a broad ingredient portfolio under one roof will enable us to better engage customers, be more agile and bring new products to market more quickly,” she explained.

Carroll joined Nouryon in December. During her 29-year career, she’s worked at Rohm & Haas, Dow and, most recently, DuPont.

Cristiane Canto, global business head for home and personal care, Oxiteno, agreed that 2019 was a challenging year, due to the modest performance of the economy in Oxiteno’s Latin American markets, the decrease in exports, and the decline in petrochemical commodity prices on the international market.

“Nevertheless, the company remains committed to its agenda of growth and adopted several initiatives for generating value in its businesses and strengthening its competitive position in the market,” she said.
According to Danielé Piergentili, VP-BASF Home & Personal Care, North America, one-size-fits-all won’t fly in the home and personal care categories. It’s about well-being of people and the planet.

“Personalization has already impacted personal care and home care, and soon, we expect it to impact I&I, too,” he told Happi.

Like so many other industries, sustainability has become a key driver of NPD during the past year, and suppliers agreed that it will continue to dominate product development.

“Sustainability has been a major trend for a while, but now, consumers are much more educated about sustainability and questionable ingredients,” observed Vincent Gass, head of global marketing, Clariant.
He noted that free-from claims are on the rise and traditional preservatives are under fire. Those are just two results from millennial demands for sustainable solutions. Last year, Clariant started the EcoCircle program to look at plastic in a new way.

“New chemistry is biodegradable and, perhaps, bio-derived,” observed Eric Peeters, global business director and general manager, Dow Home & Personal Care. “Our personal care business helps us with that type of technology transfer.”

Innovative Ideas

In fact, Peeters said Dow will have 25 new product launches in 2020.

“The Dow/Dow Corning merger has led to an explosion of new ideas,” asserted Peeters. “We have doubled the number of launches from five years ago. The market likes that. Innovation lets brand owners create new products with new attributes.”

Two new Dow products were showcased during ACI Week. Ecosurf Bright 1 Surfactant ADW is a low-foaming, readily-biodegradable surfactant, that is said to build on the success of the Ecosurf surfactant line while advancing to deliver optimal anti-spotting and shine performance, a key need in the market right now. SupraCare 133 Polymer is a fabric conditioner booster that is said to bring superior care benefits like softening with an improved cleaning profile and compatibility with other fabric ingredients, helping to enhance the overall laundry experience while still achieving supremely soft fabrics.

By introducing biodegradable polymers and renewable raw materials, Dow is demonstrating its commitment to advancing sustainability, benefiting customers, consumers and the planet, said Peeters.

“We are looking at ingredients that are biodegradable or bio-derived. We want ingredients that check all of the boxes,” observed Peeters. “We can play a role with our scale and our technology.”

One area of focus is autodish and laundry detergent liquids, but Peeters also said that anything that is not biodegradable is a potential target. And yet, green isn’t everything.

“While sustainability is a key priority, performance is never sacrificed, and we continue to deliver luxurious home care experiences of the highest caliber,” he added.

BASF was one of the first suppliers to react to the 1,4-dioxane ban in New York when it launched its Flex surfactant and polymer lineup, and it recently expanded the line by adding more ingredients. The company maintains that formulating with Flex will help its partners comply with regulations ahead of the 2022 deadline. As reported, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law that prohibits the sale of household cleaning and personal care products containing more than 2ppm 1,4-dioxane and cosmetics products containing 10ppm 1,4-dioxane by the end of 2022.

The expanded Flex gives customers a broad portfolio of flexible formulation options to meet both performance criteria and new industry requirements, according to the executives, who noted that BASF was a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2019 Safer Choice Partner of the Year Award winner—the only ingredient supplier to earn the distinction.

Sustainable Developments

Oxiteno recently reviewed its sustainability strategy to better address social, environmental and financial aspects of sustainability. According to Canto, the company’s focus is to develop solutions that bring a positive environmental and social impact, such as biodegradable solutions with reduced environmental impact and designing solutions that allow efficient use of resources, minimizing waste and saving costs, such as cold processable solutions which helps to save energy, concentrated solutions which help to reduce packaging and waste and solutions from 100% natural origin and ISO 16128 compliant. Canto said 16% of Oxiteno’s HPC solutions are from 100% natural origin; 34% of HPC solutions are compliant with ISO 16128 and 60% of HPC solutions are natural-based.

“Sustainability is being embraced by a growing number of companies as a strategy to satisfy the demands of increasingly conscious consumers who expect brands to be accountable for their manufacturing practices, providing transparency and reducing their overall carbon footprint,” she observed.

Within its portfolio, Oxiteno offers concentrated surfactants and rheology modifiers that allow the development of concentrated products that help to reduce packaging and waste; cold processable solutions that help to reduce use of energy; and ingredients from 100% natural origin, including Alkopon fatty alcohol sulfates, Oxiflow multifunctional rheology modifier, Oxismooth green emollients, Oxizymes enzymatic surfactant solution, Alkonat fatty alcohols, Glucosurf alkyl polyglucosides and Glicepol GMS glycerol esters.

Thanks to its Akzo Nobel heritage, Nouryon has a strong position in sustainable chemistry, according to Stuart Holt, global technical marketing manager-cleaning for Nouryon’s Home and Personal Care Specialties.

“Last year, the overall market had reasonable growth of 2.0-2.5%, but it was significantly outperformed by green chemistry, which posted double-digit gains, and, in some instances, increases ranging from 20-30%,” he told Happi.

And what does it mean to be “green” for consumers? Holt said there are several factors, including biodegradability, ecotoxicity and third-party verification that is readily understandable for consumers.

Nouryon has introduced Dissolvine GL (GLDA), which it describes as a safe and biodegradable chelate that is a sustainable alternative to phosphonates, NTA and EDTA in several applications, including detergents, personal care and cosmetics, hard surface cleaners and automatic dishwashing formulas.

“With our broadened portfolio together under one roof after our following reorganization, we expect to develop performance synergies between ingredients that can be of use to our customers. An example is we’ve found the synergyies between ingredients chemicals such as biocides and chelants,” explained Holt. “Together, we can enhance customer formulation performance with fewer ingredients or using lower ingredient concentrations to achieve the same effect.”

At the same time, Nouryon’s reorganization puts it much closer to the customer, which helps startups and multinationals alike find solutions and get products to market faster than ever.

“What’s happened in laundry care is happening in the industrial and institutional cleaning market,” observed Holt. “There is a move toward more plant-based formulas, less plastic in packaging and green chemistry. It is a change, but we see opportunities to become a critical partner for customers.”

New Berol 360 and Berol 366 are narrow-range ethoxylate surfactant degreasers for use in high performance cleaning formulations. Berol 360 is aimed at the I&I market, while Berol 366 is designed for home care formulas. Both are produced from vegetable-based raw materials and the finished products are certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

In July 2019, BASF launched Trilon M Max EcoBalanced. It is the first renewables-based Trilon M grade produced according to the biomass approach, which replaces fossil feedstock with renewable feedstock such as bio-naphtha or biogas at the very beginning of production. The renewable feedstock is then allocated to Trilon M Max EcoBalanced, using a TÜV Nord-certified method. This allows BASF to fully replace fossil feedstock by renewables, not only saving scarce fossil resources, but also reducing damaging greenhouse gas emissions, said the company.

“We are heavily investing in development of biopolymers, biosurfactants and enzymes, which will be launched in the coming years,” said Piergentili. “This is our main focus; to provide solutions that offer both efficiency and sustainability.”

Last year, BASF’s alkyl polyglucoside surfactant plant came online in Jinshan, China. In 2018, another APG plant started up in Cincinnati, OH. According to BASF, the moves better serve North American and Asian customers from regional supply points while reducing cross-regional volume flows and shortening lead times. The investments in the US and China also ease capacity concerns at the APG plant in Düsseldorf, Germany. APGs, derived from natural renewable feedstocks, are mild nonionics with a wide range of applications in home and personal care.

In another move, the company is expanding its enzyme business through BASF Enzymes LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary based in San Diego.


An Anniversary at Oxiteno

In September, Oxiteno celebrated the first anniversary of operations at its manufacturing plant in Pasadena, TX. Canto noted that the unit complies with the safety and regulatory standards and offer high purity materials, aligned with the New York regulations. Pasadena includes best-in-class alkoxylation technology to ensure safety and environmental performance and offers full service on demand customization, according to the company.

“It serves as reliable domestic source of products for Oxiteno’s regional and global customers,” Canto concluded.

Peeters noted that Dow had $3 billion worth of online sales in 2019. He explained that simplification is a critical component of supply chain management and online sales can eliminate human error. And digitalization enables Dow to conduct even more electronic data interchange.

“Being efficient brings benefits to the customer,” he concluded. “Following the Dow Corning acquisition we’ve added silicones to our lineup and, it has enabled us to optimize sustainability, performance and affordability.”

Evonik’s new intoCleaning digital platform, intoCleaning.evonik.com, gives customers access to digital tools, videos, information and documentation about Evonik’s products and concepts. The platform is said to be intuitive, user-friendly and available anytime from anywhere.

The platform has been designed for formulators who are searching for product recommendations, for distributors seeking to answer detailed customer inquiries, and for potential customers who want to find out more about the latest products and concepts available from Evonik Cleaning Solutions.

The intoCleaning platform includes a product area, selection tools, videos, certifications and factsheets, workshops and more. According to Evonik, the site enables registered users to catch up on product-specific information and documentation, place sample orders, find the right ingredient for formulations and get insights into consumer trends and concepts.

“The speed of innovation is ramping up,” observed Gass. “Test markets are digitized, formulators prototype and test early to create what consumers want quickly. Industry demands it.”

One innovative idea from Clariant is TexCare polymers, which form a protective film during washing that keeps clothes clean and white, according to the company. The polymers remove stains even at low temperatures, protect against new soiling, reduce graying and improve wearing comfort by increasing moisture absorption. Multifunctional TexCare polymers are said to work especially well when used for garments with a high percentage of polyester fibers.

TexCare is just one product line in Clariant’s CleanJoyable home care concept. The idea is that consumers have peace of mind when their homes are cleaner and tidier, and the process creates a sense of satisfaction. Other products include GlucoPure Sense for dishwashing and Aristocare Smart for hard surface cleaning. GlucoPure sugar surfactants are said to provide the same level of cleaning as traditional surfactants but with a superior sustainability profile. Aristocare surface modification polymers provide a protective film on surfaces so that soils can easily be removed during the next cleaning and water drains more quickly from the smoothed surface resulting in spotless drying without lime scale buildup.

Jarchem Industries, Inc.’s new campaign is called “Clean INCI, Clean Label” for its Care division. The campaign builds on Jarchem’s long-standing motto “Based on Nature, Rooted in Science.” The year-long campaign will highlight innovative products Jarchem offers that are natural-in-origin and compliant with regulations.

The company notes that label transparency and ingredient safety have been the driving force behind legislation and regulation changes in the cleaning industry for the past decade. Bills such as the California Cleaning Product Right to Know Act and New York’s 1,4-dioxane bill have encouraged companies to look for alternative ingredients that are considered “safe” by List of Lists for chemical ingredients.

Jarchem’s Clean INCI, Clean Label campaign aims to help formulators navigate their way through Jarchem’s extensive portfolio of nature-based products that offer customers the versatility of creating a cleaner, environment-friendly, and functional cleaning formulation.

Jarchem’s Jarfactant alkyl polyglucoside surfactants are naturally-derived from coconut and RSPO MB palm. The product line contains a variety of carbon-chain lengths, each having unique properties to suit different applications. Jarfactant products are listed on the Safer Chemical Ingredient List for use in SaferChoice-certified products. Jarfactant 6206, is a low foaming hydrotrope that has high caustic solubility and low viscosity. It has been evaluated and listed on CleanGredient.

Jarchem’s Biopure GLDA has also recently been added to CleanGredients as a chelating agent. Biopure GLDA is a nature-based low eco-toxicity alternative to EDTA that is biodegradable and has a low impact on the environment. It is comparably effective as EDTA as a metal ion binder for the prevention of calcium scum and antimicrobial boost. Biopure GLDA has good solubility over a wide pH range, making it an easy addition to existing formulations, according to the company.

Clearly, sustainability remains top-of-mind for suppliers and their customers.

“Sustainability drove developments in 2019 and we expect an increased focus on sustainability in 2020,” observed Schweens. “It is the key topic of conversation and it goes hand-in-hand with innovation.”