Green Chemistry

The German industrial gases giant Linde is launching a new chain of dry cleaners, called Fred Butler, that will use a carbon dioxide-based washing technique.

At a press conference in Frankfurt, the company declared its intention to eventually capture a 20% share of the European dry-cleaning market, which it says is worth about $1.3 billion annually in Germany and $10 billion across the continent. It is converting 24 existing Hangers dry-cleaning stores to the Fred Butler name and plans 10 more stores by the end of the year.

Most dry cleaning is accomplished with the solvent perchloroethylene. But Fred Butler CEO Andreas Klensch said CO₂ offers "the consumer and the environment a real alternative to conventional methods." The company just became the first textile-cleaning company to win Europe's coveted Nordic Swan ecolabel.

In the Linde system, CO₂ that has been recovered from other industrial processes is liquefied under pressure. It is then combined with a detergent booster developed by the specialty chemical maker Uniqema and added to clothes in a rotating washing chamber. Dirt is separated by distillation, and the CO₂ is reused.

Although perchloroethylene is under environmental scrutiny-California, for example, plans to ban it in dry-cleaning by 2020-the solvent still commands the lion's share of the dry-cleaning market, which is dominated by small-business owners (C&EN, Nov. 14, 2005, page 19).

But corporate newcomers to the business are pushing alternative solvents. In the U.S., the Men's Wearhouse clothing chain and Florida's Oxxo Care cleaner chain plan to go nationwide with dry cleaners that use decamethylcyclopentasiloxane, a solvent promoted by GreenEarth Cleaning.