Fabric softeners are the most popular laundry care products after detergents. They keep clothes soft, enhance nice smells while preventing musty odours, extend the life of clothes, reduce the formation of wrinkles and improve endurance ability of clothes against stains.
However, existing fabric softeners are usually inefficient and contain harmful toxic ingredients that are bad for environment and human health. In a laundry cycle, 95% of softeners are lost in water during the draining process, generating excessive impact on the environment. The remaining 5% of softener remains on clothes for only a short time, before slowly releasing the chemical substances on to skin and the environment.
CARINSA has developed an eco-friendly polymeric coating that microencapsulates fragrances and drastically improves fabric softener efficiency. The fabric softeners produced with our technology do not contain toxic materials, increase the adherence to fabric in the washing process by up to 10 times and will improve softener duration on clothes by up to 330%. ECO-SOFT project represents a huge opportunity for our company (CARINSA) to commercialise an innovative solution that will benefit the whole fabric softener value chain. Our solution, CARINCAP, allows fabric softener manufacturers to increase their gross margin by 30% while final consumers will benefit from an eco-efficient, safe laundry care product that has reduces cost per wash by 61%.
The goal of the ECO-SOFT project is to bring CARINCAP microcapsules to the global market at the end of 2019. CARINCAP is a revolutionary concept that will meet market needs, enabling the production of healthy, eco-friendly and cost-effective fabric softeners with nice and long lasting scent, thus contributing directly to the competitiveness of this sector in Europe.
ECO-SOFT has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement
No 783681.
Industrial scale up of the synthesis process, design and construction of the production plant and installation of the equipment.
Ensuring the physical, chemical and functional properties of the microcapsules developed at industrial scale.
External validation of CARINCAP technology and demonstration in client’s operational conditions and develop strategic alliances with key stakeholders.
Develop a Business Plan to ensure the commercialization of CARINCAP technology at the end of the project.