Dehypon LS45 detergent

At Historic Royal Palaces, we have an experimental programme
assessing the detergents currently being used in textile cleaning.
One of these is Dehypon LS45, originally highlighted in the 2004
paper by Fields et al. on alternatives to Synperonic N.  This is
giving good cleaning performance in our study, but there seems to be
some confusion in the MSDS information.

In the information from Cognis Corporation (manufacturer?) the
Ecological Toxicity is described as "Not Determined", but in a
Technical Data Sheet from Conservation by Design (UK) the
Environmental Precautions are "Do not allow to flow into drainage
systems: very toxic to aquatic organisms"--both have dates in 2000.
Various questions obviously arise from this. What is the true
position on the environmental effects?  Is it in fact lawful to
discharge this into the drainage system?  In changing from
Synperonic N to this detergent, have we ended up in the same
position 10 years on? Is this a problem inherent with non-ionic
detergents?  I would be very interested in further information or
opinions on this.

Dr Ian Gibb
Conservation Scientist
Hampton Court Palace
Historic Royal Palaces
Surrey
UK
+44 20 3166 6462


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:6
                  Distributed: Saturday, July 19, 2008
                        Message Id: cdl-22-6-018
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