Growing environmental awareness, ambitious sustainability targets, and strict energy labelling requirements are driving advancements in dishwasher technology towards significantly reduced resource consumption. Modern dishwash programs respond to these demands by operating at lower water consumption and reduced temperatures, thereby continuously decreasing the environmental footprint of each wash cycle. At the same time, consumers are often using short cycle programs to save time.

These developments come with a challenge: modern dishwasher programs can lead to insufficient removal of soil, resulting in the accumulation of residues such as fatty deposits in machine compartments, most notably in the filter. These residues may negatively affect the wash performance, can reduce the lifespan of the dishwasher, and can become perceivable to consumers, who might associate this with insufficient performance of the detergent, the dishwasher, or both, negatively affecting both the detergent and the manufacturer’s brand perception.

Additional cleaning steps become necessary, resulting in increased resource consumption and maintenance effort conflicting with environmental trends and consumer expectations of low-maintenance household appliances.
This creates an opportunity for detergent producers for intelligent formulation design. With Genapol® Pure Power, Clariant has developed an innovative rinse surfactant that leads to significantly reduced build-up of residues in the filter, enabling minimized machine care while ensuring optimal shine and drying performance. This supports longer lifetime of dishwashers and saves resources and time without compromising consumer expectations for superior and affordable results.

We look forward to presenting this innovation at the SEPAWA Congress 2026.