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Water Basics |
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Water is one of the most essential compounds to all living organisms on our planet. Fortunately it is also one of the most common compounds. Where water is clean and plentiful, life is generally good. If it is scarce or severely polluted, life is difficult or in peril.
This colorless, odorless liquid exists in many forms and mixtures and provides us with a myriad of wonderful amenities to our life as well as being one of the most critical materials necessary for our very existence. In this article, I would like to provide some background on water and how it relates to our business of car washing. In subsequent articles, I will get into more detail on water chemistry and recycling.
Most of us know that water can exist in three different forms: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (steam or water vapor). As car washers, we have to deal with all three forms at one time or another, although the liquid form is by far out greatest concern.
Water in the solid form is, of course, primarily a winter issue. Cars coming to the wash can be covered with ice and snow. It is packed into the wheel wells and behind the bumpers making prepping the cars more labor intensive. On the other hand, it also creates our busiest car washing season as the salt used to melt ice on the roads keeps vehicles looking dirty much of the winter. For many operators, water freezing on pavement at car wash exits is a serious safety issue.
Winter car washing does require higher solution temperatures. The activity of your presoak detergents is directly related to temperature. If cold solutions are sprayed onto freezing temperature vehicle surfaces, the activity of the detergent and thus the cleaning ability will be greatly reduced. If you live in a colder region of the world, you should run your presoak solution temperatures in the 140°F to 150°F range during winter months. In the summer, solution temperatures should be run much cooler to offset the higher car surface temperatures. Every detergent has a specific temperature at which it will provide maximum cleaning performance; that temperature should be in a range that is achievable year round and will not damage the surface of the vehicle. Work with your supplier to determine what the ideal temperature range is for the products you are using.
Water in the form of a gas or vapor can also be important to car wash operators however its importance is more indirect. Humidity in the air will impede evaporation drying, and it will condense on any cold surfaces or just generally fog up the place. In addition, there may be some relationship between the humidity level in the air, and how difficult it is to remove the soil from the car, but this relationship is not well understood. The liquid form of water, is of course, the greatest concern for most of us. The quantity and quality of water can vary greatly from place to place and even from time to time depending upon your water source. Water "quality" affects wear on your equipment, the functioning of your detergents, and the final appearance of the vehicle as it leaves the wash. Water is the ideal car washing medium. It is generally readily available, piped right into your car wash, it's non-toxic, non-flammable, relatively inexpensive, and can be pumped, heated, sprayed in numerous configurations, made spot free, and can efficiently deliver most car wash products onto the vehicle surfaces.
Once it is used, we have technology to remove most impurities added to the water so it can be safely returned to the environment. If necessary, it can be reclaimed on site at the car wash and re-used over and over again.
We often talk of "Solvent" cleaners, referring to products that generally contain little or no water but rely on organic solvents to dissolve certain tough soils such as grease and tar. In fact, however, one nickname for water is "The Universal Solvent". There are really very few things that don't dissolve to some extent in water. It may not be the most efficient solvent for some applications, but the solvency of water is still very important to most cleaning applications.
One of the main concerns when formulating a liquid detergent is how well the ingredients stay dissolved in the water. The better products contain higher levels of actives and demand a great deal of formulating skill and knowledge to keep everything in solution. In addition, some very effective ingredients are not naturally very soluble in water and the formulator must use other ingredients to help them dissolve.
Once the detergents mix with the water for application at the car wash, there can be reactions and loss of solubility depending upon the quality and temperature of the water. Most ingredients are more soluble in hot water, but that is not true for all ingredients. Some surfactants ("surface active agents" or soap like ingredients) have "Cloud Points" or temperatures at which they come out of solution. If you exceed the cloud point, the surfactant will change from a solution to a dispersion, cloud up the solution and lose much of its functionality. The net result is that you can actually decrease the cleaning ability of some detergents by mixing them with water that is too hot.
The quality of the water also has a significant impact on the car washing process. I am using the term "quality" to describe the minerals and other natural chemicals that are dissolved in the water coming into your car wash. The most common and important of these are the "Hardness Minerals" Calcium and Magnesium.
In the next couple of articles, we will be focusing on water quality, and see that it is a variable that you can control to help you give your customers an end product that meets their expectations.
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