Products & Solutions

Car washes

A brilliant appearance

Car washing has long since been a science. High-tech automatic car washes today offer long-lasting gloss and protection in addition to a clean car. And Evonik supplies the perfect ingredients.

Four steps are usually all it takes to transform a filthy old jalopy into a clean and polished car: pre-wash, brush washing, protection, and drying. For each of these steps Evonik has an appropriate product in its portfolio.

The high pressure of the pre-wash takes stubborn dirt by the scruff of the neck. Dead insects, usually rich in fat and protein, are not only flushed away under pressure but also chemically attacked. In the second step, the vehicle is treated with brushes and strong foam using amine oxides, betaines, and surfactants. These surface-active substances ensure that solid particles of dirt can be more effectively dislodged from the coating surface and easily rinsed off with the foam.

In the third step the car is protected to ensure that it stays clean for as long as possible. This is done by sealing the coating with silicone products, which shields it against dirt, UV radiation, and other environmental influences. UV radiation in particular can affect unprotected coating, causing the colors to fade. After washing comes drying—and here again science is at work. The aim is to keep the high-gloss coated surfaces and highly transparent windshields free from all lime spots. The solution is offered by Evonik’s Household Care Business Line in the form of the specialty ester-oil REWOCARE DOC®, an organic oil ensuring that the water film can be blown off the surface in no time at all.

Eco-friendly formulation

It used to be that weekends meant taking sponge and chamois in hand and flooding your drive with soap and water—but those days are gone. Washing your car has long since become a science. © Photo: iStock / Yuri
It used to be that weekends meant taking sponge and chamois in hand and flooding your drive with soap and water—but those days are gone. Washing your car has long since become a science. © Photo: iStock / Yuri

Car washes, whether fully automatic or self-service, have closed water systems and optimized processes that make them much more eco-friendly than car washing at home or in the street, which in any case is prohibited in many places. Washing with a domestic high pressure cleaner uses 400 liters of fresh water, or five times as much as a professional car wash. Car washes contribute to environmental protection, a cause that Evonik supports by producing eco-friendly formulations: products based on renewable raw materials or surfactants that are easily biodegradable.

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