getting the water out of liquid

hand soap

Brian Van Osdol

Dan Malik

How much water is in liquid soap?

• Water is #1 ingredient in all liquid soaps

• ~50% of liquid soap by volume is H2O*

• Each 7.5 fl.oz. bottle contains 112 g H2O**

* snowdriftfarm.com/form_liquidsoap.htm instructions for making soapl

**density of water = 30g/oz

Observations

• People overwhelmingly prefer liquid soap

– no dirty, slimy bar or messy powder

• Liquid soap user-experience generally

good

• People do not thoroughly wash hands

• There is a stigma about touching things

that appear dirty near the sink

Brainstorm: how do we get the

water out?

Brainstorming contd.

• Initial Ideas

– Solid soap on a swivel faucet rack

– Soap bottle tube filled with solid soap

– Dispenser of pill-sized solid soap

– Motion sensing powdered soap “snow

machine”

– Nozzle filled with solid soap “infuser”

– How does foaming nozzle work?

PrototypesEvaluating solubility of bar

soap, rough prototype of

under-faucet soap rackJamming microwaved soap

into a liquid soap pump

Prototypes contd.

Solid soap slicing dispenser?

Yum…

Version 1.0 : dissolved solid

soap with foaming pumpTesting/Iteration

• Under-faucet swivel not popularamong testers

• Slicer makes a tremendous mess

• People clean hands morethoroughly with soapy water(compared to liquid soap)

• Solid soap dissolves nicely in bottleof water, creating a light & foamysoap solution

Final Concept Final Concept

Final Concept

• “Fill At Home” Foaming Liquid Soap

• Three-use bottle

• Saves transportation of 112g x 3 = 336gH20 per bottle*

• Translates to 45g CO2 saved per bottle*

– Adds up to 1800 lbs CO2 saved per truck load* Compared to three 7.5 oz bottles of liquid hand soap

User Story

• User has just cooked some fried wontons (greasy)

• Goes to apply soap to hands, but dispenser has run dry

User Story contd.

• Refills the bottle in a snap with

the quick-fill opening (no

unscrewing required)

• Shakes until next soap level is

dissolved

• Applies soap and rinsesNice and clean.

Unintended/Additional Benefits

• Significantly reduced packaging

– 3 bottles in one, i.e. 67% less PET

• Takes “Refilling” mainstream

– water instead of soap: less mess

– promotes culture of re-use

• Better coverage of hand with soap -> morethorough cleaning with less viscous product

Questions

CO2 Calculation

http://www.premiertrailerleasing.com/VanSpecSheet.pdf53 foot trailer capacity: 4,005 ft^3 or 14,200 lbs

assuming a 7.5 fl oz bottle takes up 8fl oz (0.008355 ft^3) of volume in the truckthat is 479,350 soap bottles per truck479350 *112 grams = 53,687 Kg = 118,360 lbs of water

This is above full shipping capacity of a truck. So the shipping volume of the truck is not optimized. We must go backand use weight restrictions as our metric instead of volume

For the CO2 calculation we'll assume that at least a third of the weight comes from water (50% of the volume is volumeso this is a generous assumption)

30% of the max shipping weight of 14,200 is 4260 lbs. This is the assumed weight of water shipped for a full load ofsoap. This comes out to: 4260lbs /112 grams = 17,000 bottles

The trip for Dial soap from their manufacturing headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ to Palo Alto, CA is 744 miles.

using feuleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml value of one gallon of gasoline produces 20 pounds of CO2 The fuel efficiencywill vary by 8mpg for full capacity to 14mpg for shipping the same number with no water (extrapolated fromhttp://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/SAS/modules/graph.htm plot for shipping weight to automobile fuel efficiency)

744miles/8mpg = 93 gallons vs. 744miles/14mpg = 53 gallonsDifference in gallons is 40 gallons. This is equivalent to 600 lbs of CO2 per truck of soapWith our three uses per bottle we can multiply this by 3 to get a savings of 1800 lbs of CO2 per truck.1800lbs/17,000 = 0.1 lbs of CO2 per bottle saved for just shipping

Final Concept contd.

• Other features

– Quick fill opening (no

unscrewing or removing

of a soapy pump

required)

– Printed lines on bottle

indicate proper quantity

of soap has been

dissolved