I can smell and feel it from here.
It burns ny eyes.
That’s why the picture’s so blurry
Now I want to ask a “they-did-the-math” community, how high the water hardness would have to be for that to be the right amount of detergent…
I’m just eye-balling it here, but here’s the ballpark estimate I got.
The detergent box looks like it’s about 10 cm × 5 cm × 5 cm, so 250 ml. Let’s assume there’s about 250 ml of detergent in there.
I’m assuming that 50 ml is what you would normally use for that amount of laundry. That 250 ml is about 250/50 = 5x the usual amount.
I’m assuming that the recommended amount of detergent scales linearly with water hardness. BTW water hardness is pretty complicated, since there are many compounds that can mess around with detergent. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to ignore all of that and the awful hardness scales, and go with CaCO3 concentration in mg/l.
Usually, you’ll have about 60…120 mg/l of CaCO3, and that’s when you would use something like 50 ml of detergent. This time, we’re going with 5x that amount, so I’ll assume that means the water hardness should be around 5x as much. That adds up to 60 mg/l * 5 = 300. The upper estimate would be about 600 mg/l. That’s well above what would be considered very hard water. Probably more like brine or something.
I thought about sea water, but that has plenty of Na+1 ions, but this thing would require metals with a +2 charge, so Mg+2, and Ca+2 are the usual ones. I guess Fe+3 and Al+3 would do the trick too. Where would you get lots of those? Maybe OP is washing their clothes with the raffinate stream of some industrial leaching process. Just find and acidic process, use Ca(OH)2 to adjust the pH, and you’ll get raffinate like that. You could also use the AMD (Acid Mine Drainage) of an abandoned copper mine. Alternatively, consider using the reject of a reverse osmosis desalination plant.
On the other hand, if the ground water passes straight through a massive limestone deposit, you should get plenty of Ca+2 in the water. I guess that’s the natural way to get to a situation like this. So, basically like those mineral water springs in Germany.
Anyway, so if you’re a sane person, you won’t be using this kind of water for washing your laundry. If you’re in a super tight spot and all you have is RO reject or AMD, you’re not completely screwed since you can compensate by adding absurd amounts of detergent. Just be prepared scoop up heaps of soap scum from the washing machine afterwards.
This guy chemists!
BTW, I just checked my mineral rich German Sprudel (Gerolsteiner - yes, I am one of the insane persons that like it!), and it say on the label:
348mg/l Ca
108mg/l MgSo, washing with German Gerolsteiner Sprudel instead of tap water still would require less detergent than shown in the image, if your estimate is correct :-)
Was that the concentration of Ca ion or the whole package (CaCO3)?
It additionally shows 1816mg/l hydrogen carbonate.
Would this be the CO3 part?[Edit]
Wikipedia says hydrogen carbonate is HCO3− and is the second part of disolved calcium carbonate, so looks like the 348mg/l are really pure calcium ionsOk, so the 348 mg/l of Ca2+ ions translates to about 869 mg/l of CaCO3, which is a lot.
If you really used water like that for washing clothes, all those Ca2+ will suck a bunch of fatty acids from the detergent, forming loads of soap scum. Technically, it’s Ca and Mg salts of fatty acids, but it’s nasty either way. Yes, the Mg ions won’t sit idle. They will join the party.
Anyway, I don’t think the picture is as crazy as it seems at first glance. If your local water is loaded with multivalent cations (Ca2+, Mg2+, Al3+ Fe3+ etc.) dumping in about quarter a bottle of detergent for a single batch might not be totally unreasonable after all. Gets pretty expensive though, but at least you can practice your detergent+softener art every time. Hobbies always cost something, and there are worse ways to spend your money. Personally, I still prefer latte art, but whatever floats your boat.
Oh, and the precipitates! All of that goo has to go somewhere. Some of it is going to get stuck on the clothes, inside the washing machine, pipes and every surface it comes in contact with. Cleaning up a mess like that should keep you busy.
i mean just to be real for a second: you could just use a dedicated water softener product instead of more detergent. they exist for a reason.
True, but what’s the fun in that.
Out of curiosity I just checked the mineral content of the water my sister (who has a calcium deficiency) is drinking (Naturpark Quelle):
Ca: 555mg/l
Mg: 59mg/lSo it looks like doing your laundry using Naturpark Quelle mineral water would require the shown amount of detergent!
Yeah, that water sure has plenty of calcium. It should be in the right ballpark for extreme laundry like that.
Detergent Barista
Once a barista, always a barista
For a second I thought he was using Pepto-Bismol.
I get individual elements of this image, but I’m missing some context.
