What is the difference between a detergent and a sanitizer?

Answer 1

Antiseptic is an antimicrobian agent used in medicine.

Disinfectant has a more large sense: substances used to disinfect buildings or soils, atmosphere in closed spaces, objects, planes, cars, materials etc. - generally nonliving.

Answer 2

The process of cleaning versus the process of disinfecting are uniquely different - actually, they both use detergents, but in opposite ways. To clean a dirty surface, one uses a detergent, mixed in water, to break up and dissolve the soil particles. The detergent, suspended in water, encapsulates the soil particles and uses the water as the vehicle that transports the soil to the mop bucket or hand bucket and eventually down the drain. When the detergent is mixed in fresh water, the detergent bubbles have no cargo to carry away until it is applied onto the soiled surface. So, a detergent used for cleaning is free of cargo when it is first mixed in water. The cargo, the soil to be removed, awaits the arrival of the detergent solution to dissolve it and carry it away.

Now, with disinfectant / detergent concentrate, the detergent's cargo is formulated into the mix...the cargo are the disinfectant ingredients waiting to be applied to a clean surface. The formulation of a disinfectant / detergent has a very small amount of detergent in it; just enough detergent to hold all of the disinfectant ingredients together in the water. The disinfectant ingredients, not the detergent, make up the largest portion of the concentrate formulation. That is probably why the word disinfectant precedes the word detergent when it is called

a disinfectant / detergent concentrate.

Again, detergent concentrates are formulated to break up and remove soils from

a surface. Disinfectant / detergent concentrates are made to allow you to spread

a disinfectant residue over a clean surface.

Answer 3

The main differences between antiseptics and disinfectants are that disinfectants are used primarily to sanitize objects, and antiseptics are used on human skin. They both act as antimicrobials that kills the microbes that cause infection, and contain many of the same ingredients. Disinfectant usually comes in liquid form or in a spray, whereas antiseptic is usually in the form of an ointment,

Answer 4

Detergents are used to remove dirt, grease, and grime from surfaces, while sanitizers are designed to kill or reduce the number of bacteria and germs on surfaces to prevent the spread of illness. Detergents focus on cleaning, while sanitizers focus on disinfecting.

Answer 5

Sanitizers sterilise. They kill off microorganisms to a safe level, but do not remove dirt.

Detergents clean. They remove dirt but don't kill off microorganisms.

Answer 6

idk just wanna laugh for a while when some one see it so imagine me laugh hahahahahaha

-------Olivia Turner

Answer 7

Soaps are salts of fatty acids.
The composition of detergents is very different, generally based on sulfonates.