The application fields of cleaning agents include light industry, household, kitchen and dining, laundry, industry, transportation and other industries. The basic chemical substances used cover 15 categories such as surfactants, bactericides, thickeners, fillers, dyes, enzymes, solvents, corrosion inhibitors, chelating agents, fragrances, fluorescent whitening agents, stabilizers, acids, alkalis and abrasives.
Classification and Applications
Household cleaning refers to the cleaning and maintenance of buildings or industrial equipment, including cleaning floors, walls, furniture, carpets, doors, windows and sanitary ware, as well as surface washing of stone, wood panels, metals and glass. Such cleaners are generally designed for hard surface cleaning.
Common household cleaners include deodorants, air fresheners, floor waxes, glass cleaners, hand soaps, cleaning bars and so on. Disinfectants and bactericides formulated with o-phenylphenol, o-phenyl-p-chlorophenol or p-tert-amylphenol have a narrow scope of application, mainly used in hospitals and hotel rooms, and can effectively kill tubercle bacilli, staphylococci and salmonella.
Catering cleaning covers the washing of glassware, dinner plates, tableware, pots, grills and ovens in restaurants, which is mostly done by machines and sometimes manually. Among catering cleaners, the most widely consumed products are detergents for automatic washing machines, together with supporting rinse aids, bactericides and drying aids.
3.Cleaners for the Transportation Industry
In the transportation sector, cleaners are mainly applied to the interior and exterior cleaning of vehicles such as sedans, trucks, buses, trains, aircraft and ships, as well as the cleaning of vehicle components (e.g., braking systems, engines, turbines, etc.). The cleaning of exterior surfaces is similar to metal cleaning in industrial fields.Cleaning agents used in the transportation industry include waxes, vehicle exterior cleaners and windshield cleaners. Exterior cleaners for trucks and utility vehicles can be either alkaline or acidic, yet only alkaline products are permitted for aluminum alloy surfaces. Train exterior cleaners generally contain organic acids, inorganic acids and surfactants. Aircraft cleaning agents also represent a major consumption segment. Cleaning aircraft surfaces can not only enhance aviation safety but also boost economic efficiency. Aircraft cleaning agents are subject to dedicated standards, are required to remove heavy soil, and are mostly independently developed by the aviation industry.
Industrial cleaning is required for metal surfaces, plastic surfaces, tanks, filters, oilfield equipment, grease layers, dust, paint stripping, wax removal and other scenarios. Metal surfaces must be thoroughly cleaned prior to painting and coating to achieve optimal adhesion. Metal cleaning typically involves removing lubricants and cutting fluids from surfaces, so solvent-based cleaning agents are widely adopted. Metal cleaning tasks fall into two major categories: rust removal and degreasing. Rust removal is mostly conducted under acidic conditions, which can eliminate oxide layers formed on metals such as steel, as well as insoluble metal deposits and other corrosive residues accumulated on boiler walls and steam pipes. Degreasing takes place under alkaline conditions to primarily remove oily contaminants.
5.Other Applications
Cleaning agents are also applied in other cleaning-related fields, including textile cleaning, cleaning for flat panel displays and photovoltaic cells, and sanitation maintenance for swimming pools, clean rooms, workshops, storage rooms and more.
Post time: Jul-14-2026