Clothes washing in the food industry and domestic setting is regarded as a chore and is commonly carried out by hand or electrical appliances. The cleaning process is far from optimum and consumes large amount of energy, water and chemicals. Commercial clothes washing powders and liquids are often formulated to contain enzymes. Such formulations enable washes to be carried out at lower temperatures to improve performance, and can also increase the amount of surfactant attaching to a stain or soil, thereby reducing the surfactant load both in the wash, and also in the effluent. Most clothes washing studies are often performed in-house by manufacturers of cleaning formulation such that data is protected and rarely available in the public domain. This research is a collaborative project between the Green Cleaning Laboratory, Bath and the Department of Chemical Engineering,Thammasat University that presents a new and systematic method to study fabric cleaning. Here, the technique of Fluid Dynamic Gauging (FDG) was used to apply a range of known fluid shear stresses (0-0.316 Pa) on coconut milk soils stained on polycotton. The efficacy of two bio-detergents and the effect of soaking at 20 and 30oC were investigated and analysed. The extent of cleanliness of the fabric was characterised using gravimetric and optical methods. Studies on using fine bubbles (20-50 microns) as a pre-treatment step to enhance cleaning was also conducted at 20 and 30oC. Preliminary results indicated that soaking the stained fabric in fine bubbles for 10 minutes could enhance removal under fluid shear. Further experiments using fine bubbles are currently underway
