P&G Patents Device To Dose Detergent Additives into Washing Machine at Varied Times

US Patent 12,123,123 B2 (Carlos Amador Zamarreno, Paul Gould, Michael Leslie Groombridge, Ahmad Khattab, Craig Nelson, Michael David Sawford, William Frank Tyldesley); The Procter & Gamble Company has patented a device for dosing detergent ingredients into the drum of an automatic washing machine at multiple times through the washing process. P&G says it offers significant washing performance benefits due to the controlled variation of in-wash chemistry.

The design (shown above) enables automated delivery of detergent ingredients at multiple times through the washing process to either (or both) of the machine’s water inlet and directly to the drum.

According to P&G, laundry additives, including softeners, fragrance boosters and stain removal boosters, can typically only be delivered at one of two or three times during the washing process (wash, final rinse, and pre-wash). And when water enters the washing machine and contacts with stains on laundry, it may not contain any detergent. This initial wetting will reduce the speed at which detergent chemistry is able to access fabrics after this point once it has entered the drum, according to Procter & Gamble’s patent.

Device Details

The device is comprised of a reservoir that comprises one or more detergent ingredients, wherein the reservoir feeds detergent ingredients into a dosing manifold via a second inlet; a one-way valve to prevents the flow of water from the dosing manifold into the reservoir; and the dosing manifold which is connected to two inlets and two outlets.

The first inlet introduces water from a main water source into the dosing manifold.

The second inlet introduces a dose of the detergent ingredients from the reservoir into the dosing manifold such that an aqueous detergent solution is formed in the dosing manifold.

The first outlet that feeds the aqueous detergent solution from the dosing manifold to the drum of the automatic washing machine via a main inlet valve of the automatic washing machine, so that a dose of the aqueous detergent solution fed through the first outlet into the drum is controlled by the automatic washing machine;

The second outlet feeds the aqueous detergent solution from the dosing manifold to the drum of the automatic washing machine via a device valve, so that the main inlet valve of the automatic washing machine is by-passed and a dose of the aqueous detergent solution fed through the second outlet into the drum is controlled by the device.

A controller controls the release of the aqueous detergent solution from the dosing manifold via the second outlet, and a flow meter sends a signal to the controller to inform the controller what a flowrate is through the dosing manifold.