Standardization of Surfactant and Detergent Industry in China

Chenzhi Yao

National Standardization Center for Surfactant and Detergent, China

Currently, China surfactant and detergent industry has moved into a steady development stage,after the leap-forward developmental period started since the reforming and opening up. The standardization system of the industry has been improved and perfected step by step. By the end of 2014, the total number of effective standards, including both national standards and industrial standards, reached 147, among which 67 are national standards, and 80 are industrial ones. Of these 147 standards, 80 are concerning product quality,59 are about test methods, and five deal with general management. These standards constitute a relatively complete industry standardization system.

The current standard system covers four industrial categories: surfactants, detergents, industrial cleaning,and food washing/disinfection. The detailed information is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Surfactant and detergent standard system

The administrative authorities are responsible for the establishment and reversion of the national and industrial standards are the Technical Committee on Surfactant and Detergent of the Standardization Administration of China (SAC/TC272) and the Technical Committee on Food Cleaning and Disinfection Standardization Administration of China (SAC/TC395). Both secretariats of the two technical committees are located in China Research Institute of Daily Chemical Industry (RIDCI).RIDCI, authorized by Standardization Administration of China (SAC), is also the domestic counterpart of the technical committee of International Standardization Organization (ISO/TC91) responsible for the technical research and service in regard to ISO standards.

77 ISO standards, established under the ISO/TC91 technical committee, were effective by the end of 2014. Most of these standards are related to test methods or fundamental standards. 63 out of these 77 Standards have been converted into national or industrial standards in China, corresponding to a conversion rate of 87%. Among these 63, 17 are identically equivalent, 34 modified and 12 adopted to the original ISO standards. In addition, two recently established ISO standards are based on the standards of China.

A total of 41 standards are under either preparation or revision in China in 2015. Among these, 19 are industrial standards, one is national standard,one is national food safety standard and one is ISO international standard.These are ongoing projects that were improved in 2014; the rest were continued works from the earlier years.Detailed information is listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Standards under revision

National standards were issued and became effective in 2014 and 2015, which are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. National standard released in 2014 and 2015

Table 3 listed the newly developed ISO standards which were leaded by Chinese professionals. These standards have been issued in 2014 or in 2015.

Table 3. Newly developed ISO standards in 2014 and 2015

The key tasks for the Chinese surfactant and detergent industry on standardization in 2015, based on market development and customer demand for relative standardization, are described as follows:

1)Finishing the current projects.

2)Much more preresearch is necessary.

Preresearch projects on standardization for the categories of food cleaning, industrial cleaning and energy saving, which have been considered as the main direction of the future development of the surfactant and detergent industry, are in progress. Some important standard preresearch projects in 2015 for different industrial categories include: dish cleaner for machine washing; dish conditioner for machine washing and performance evaluation method of fruit and vegetable detergent—pesticide residues removal test method, etc, in food cleaning category; environment and procedure of food processing; guidance for the quality control of cleaning and disinfection; hard surface cleaner for home; industrial and institutional facilities—stainless steel, wood and stone surface, in industrial cleaning category; technical specification for water-saving detergent in energy saving category.

3)Active participation in the activities organized by the ISO/TC91 technical committee. Several ISO standard developmental projects led by China are running smoothly according to ISO procedure. Chinese delegates participated in the 22th member body meeting of ISO/TC 91, held in Berlin, Germany in July 2015.Attendants discussed the progress of projects under preparation such as microbiological test methods for hand dishwashing detergent, definition of the biological surfactant, and decided the next steps in 2016.

4)Promotion of dissemination and implementation of the recently revised standards.

Due to the revision of many standards in the recent years, training is necessary for the dissemination and implementation of the newly updated standards.Standard knowledge should be spread not only to technical persons of manufacturers or users, but also to ordinary consumers. And it should give full play to the leading role of Standards in the development of the industry.