Kärcher Blog International

Since 1996 MicroMol GmbH has worked – and continues to work – on a number of complex issues relating to the development, evaluation and validation of cleaning agents and disinfectants and cleaning and disinfection processes. In biological systems especially the use of tensides and a knowledge of their chemistry is very widespread and important. MicroMol GmbH is also accredited by the German Accreditation Agency (DAkkS) for a number of test procedures. MicroMol’s Dr. Andreas Dreusch is an auditor appointed by the German Accreditation Agency for the areas of biology and chemistry and therefore inspects other laboratories or public bodies to ensure that their work complies with the standards.

Dr. Dreusch, you can clean quite well using water alone, can’t you?

You can clean very well with normal tap water. However, water is no good for fatty dirt. And that is increasingly widespread. A carton of milk bursts in the supermarket, a sandwich is dropped at a fast-food outlet, in a shopping mall for example, factories have oil and grease stains from machines, and soot. And fat particles are present everywhere where there are a lot of people, such as schools, kindergartens or hospitals.

In other words, to get a surface contaminated with fat or oil really clean, you need to add cleaning agents?

Of course, you can also strengthen the mechanical component when cleaning, by brushing harder or longer. Or you can try to clean with hot water. That won’t work particularly well, but it will make the floor surface look clean. However, in many cases hygienic, reliable cleaning is only possible with the use of cleaning agents that dissolve fats so that they are picked up rather than being spread evenly across the floor.

How clean do scrubber-driers that use ec-H2O technology really clean?

We have examined this technology thoroughly in our laboratory and found that it is possible to achieve good results with these machines. However, the results are just as good as those achieved using normal water. In the case of fatty, that is water-repellent, dirt, we were able to prove clearly that particles are distributed, but not dissolved or removed. The cleaning result was definitely worse than that of machines that use cleaning agents.

http://www.micromol.com

Today was the first day of hearings at the Stuttgart District Court in the legal dispute between Kärcher and Tennant. Tennant has until March 13 to submit a further opinion to the Chamber for Commercial Affairs, and Kärcher has until April 3 to submit a response. The Court is due to issue its ruling on April 27.

“In the oral proceedings we reiterated our view of the matter clearly and precisely, and it was evident that the Court had familiarised itself very well with the facts of the case. So we look forward in confidence to the pronouncement of judgment at the end of April,” said Markus Asch, Managing Director Professional Products and Deputy Chairman of the Alfred Kärcher GmbH & Co. KG management.

Tennant has withdrawn in Germany a wrongly translated Press release in which it claimed incorrectly that an agency responsible for dealing with anti-competitive advertising in the UK– Oxfordshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service – considered scientific proof to have been provided of the efficacy of ec-H2O technology.

In fact, the agency had merely stated that it was not pursuing the complaint further because its expertise was mainly legal and it did not have detailed knowledge about every product that was available on the market. The Trading Standards Service merely observed that Tennant had submitted evidence in support of its dubious advertising claims, but that it – the TSS – was unable to check the accuracy of the evidence. Accordingly, Tennant continues to have failed to provide scientific proof of the efficacy of the so-called ec-H2O technology.

Tennant GmbH & Co. KG has applied to the Regional Court in Stuttgart for a further extension of the deadline for the statement of defence to 7 December 2011. The request was granted.

The reason given by Tennant for this request for an extension of the deadline is that expert opinion was currently being compiled by the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology (IGB). The subject under examination was the effectiveness of the ec-H2O technology.

Till now, Tennant had publicly maintained that the effectiveness of the so-called ec-H2O technology had already some time ago been substantiated by several studies.

In Great Britain, the mass-circulation Daily Telegraph recently carried an article about the Tennant case headlined “Industrial scrubbers under scrutiny over green claims,” while the highly regarded specialist portal The Manufacturer published both an article , “Regulator to investigate Tennant over ‘wonder water’,” and a blog entry, “Manufacturers at risk from false advertising legal loophole,” about the case.

An interview with Hartmut Jenner, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Management Board of the Kärcher Group was published in the recent issue of the German economy magazine “Wirtschaftswoche”. The complete interview was released on the website of the Wirtschaftswoche:

Interview on Wirtschaftswoche.de

You can find an English translation here

In the printed magazine, a shortened version of this text was published.

The production of Tennant’s “processed water” as described in the brochure can be summarised as follows. An electric current from an electrolytic cell in the scrubber-driers used to break down tap water enriched with oxygen into acid and alkaline parts (ionisation). As soon as it comes into contact with the surface to be cleaned, this so-called “electrically activated water” is said to break down dirt into smaller particles and dislodge it from the floor. It is claimed that after about 45 seconds this “activated” water turns back into normal water. All that remains in the machine’s dirty water tank is dirt and water.

Technically, water can indeed be ionised for a very, very short time in an electrolytic cell. However, ions characteristically combine into a neutral water molecule again immediately, within nanoseconds. The water is then back in its original state as far as its cleaning effect is concerned and no longer has any detergent properties.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has announced that it will be investigating in detail Tennant’s advertising for the so-called ec-H2O technology. The ASA is a supervisory agency that works for the government and the advertising industry and investigates complaints about unfair advertising or false advertising messages. Kärcher had filed a complaint with the ASA about Tennant’s claim that scrubber-driers equipped with ec-H2O technology require no detergent additive to clean floors and that tap water “activated” by means of ec-H2O technology is as effective as a cleaning agent. Kärcher considers these statements to be scientifically untenable and unfair. In addition to its complaint to the ASA, Kärcher has initiated legal proceedings against Tennant in Germany and Belgium.

Kärcher is taking legal action for unfair competition against three national Tennant companies that belong to the US Tennant Group. The subject of the dispute is false claims that Tennant makes in advertising for scrubber-driers that are equipped with the contentious ec-H2O technology. Tennant claims that this technology can use electrolysis to break down normal tap water into acid and alkaline components that then act as a powerful cleaning agent. Tennant also claims that its ec-H2O technology makes it its own powerful cleaner and there is therefore no longer any need to buy a floor cleaning detergent for the cleaning machines. Tennant also claims that the ec-H2O technology has proved its worth. These statements are misleading for customers and absolutely untenable scientifically. Tennant is thereby attempting in a unfair manner to set itself apart from its competitors – by making a customers a promise that cannot possibly be kept.