Fromย American Laundry News, February 2026:
Wash temperature has always been part of an effective industrial laundry formula, along with mechanical action, chemistry, and time. Low and high temperatures have been used throughout the industryโs history, but for many years, higher temperatures have been required to achieve desired cleanliness levels, especially in recent years with health concerns such as COVID-19. But today, more operators are looking to improvements in wash chemistry to lower wash temperatures and increase efficacy and efficiency.
American Laundry News reached out to six laundry chemistry experts to learn more about the movement toward processing goods with lower temperatures.
Below are the responses from Steven Tinker, senior vice president of research & development and marketing for Gurtler Industries.
First, define lower-temperature laundry chemistry.
Traditional wash temperatures in the commercial and institutional laundry industry have been between 160 and 180ยฐF. Those temperatures were required for efficient and effective soil removal and bleaching performance. With new surfactant and bleaching technology, wash and bleach temperatures in many cases have been lowered to 140ยฐF. Lower temperatures in the 100-120ยฐF range are potentially possible for many wash classifications.
Why is the laundry industry asking for lower-temperature cleaning capability today?
Many laundries continue to look for key cost management initiatives. Energy is an important component of the entire process. Heating water and drying textiles are the major energy usage in the laundry operation, and making these processes more efficient while lowering energy input can yield significant savings.
Why was higher-temperature laundry desired previously?
If you go way back in history (pre-1960), when textiles were 100% cotton and laundries used alkali, natural soap and chlorine bleach to clean and sanitize their linens, high temperatures of 180ยฐF were the standard. When the first synthetic surfactants were developed, the optimum temperature was about 160ยฐF for the best cleaning, and chlorine bleach use was optimized at about 140ยฐF. When oxygen bleach was used, a temperature range of 160-180ยฐF was considered optimal. Of course, these temperature recommendations were determined when energy costs were not as high as today. Since the energy crisis in the early 1970s, the cost and availability of various energy sources have changed the relative importance of energy costs in the overall cost profile of a commercial or institutional laundry.
What are the advantages of lower-temperature laundry chemistry?
The prime advantage of lower temperature laundering is the cost savings due to lower energy usage. There are some potential increases in extended textile life, but this is a very difficult factor to measure.
What are the disadvantages?
The biggest disadvantage is the potential for less efficient cleaning, especially for greases and oils. This disadvantage can be overcome with the use of detergents that are specifically formulated for lower temperature use, and in some cases, an increase in detergent usage and a potential increase in washing times, again especially if the textiles have a high degree of oily or greasy soils. The cost of additional detergent should be a fraction of the potential energy cost savings.
A major potential disadvantage of lower wash temperatures has to do with the efficiency of the extract process. It has been shown that the extraction of moisture from common commercial or institutional textiles is more efficient when the temperature of the textile is over 100ยฐF, and with 100% cotton fabrics, the improvement of extraction increases significantly at temperatures as high as 140ยฐF. Extracting water from the textiles is much more efficient, energy-wise, than evaporating retained moisture in a dryer. If more moisture is retained in your fabric because water temperatures in the final rinse have dipped significantly below 100ยฐF, then all of the energy savings in the wash low-temperature process can be offset by increased energy usage in the dryer.
What suggestions can you offer laundries that are exploring lower-temperature laundry chemistry?
Since the major advantage of lower temperature washing is energy cost savings, it is prudent for the laundry to make sure that the operation is already taking advantage of other energy cost savings steps before lowering the wash temperatures. Such steps include the recapture of energy through heat exchangers or water reuse systems. In addition, it may be useful to audit the efficiency of your water heating systems, such as boilers or direct-fired water heaters, and consider an upgrade to more efficient technology.
One of the greatest uses of energy in the laundry operation is in the drying process. To save energy, make sure your dryers are running efficiently, and you are not over-drying your textiles. As noted earlier, make sure you monitor the amount of retained moisture in your typical load of textiles after extraction for your high temperature washing and for your low temperature washing. Ideally, there should be no differences, so you do not have any increases in drying times and thus an increase in energy needs for drying.
Lastly, any thoughts about lower washing temperatures should be reviewed in detail with your laundry chemical supplier, so you can consider potential changes in wash formulas and detergent usage. Thorough monitoring of overall operational energy usage before and after changes should be a standard metric to make sure that
For guidance on optimizing your wash chemistry and improving energy efficiency, contact Gurtler Industries, Inc. to discuss customized solutions for your commercial and industrial laundry operation.